EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Induced innovation: evidence from China’s secondary industry

Belton Fleisher (), William H. McGuire, Xiaojun Wang () and Min Qiang (Kent) Zhao

Applied Economics, 2021, vol. 53, issue 52, 6075-6093

Abstract: We investigate the effect of rising labour costs on induced technological change in China’s secondary industry. Building on insights developed in a rich literature, we propose a model linking changes in labour productivity to changes in labour costs and the predetermined availability of physical capital. Importantly, we derive testable hypotheses to distinguish induced innovation from standard substitution of capital for labour under fixed technology. Our empirical results support the hypothesis that rising wages have induced labour-saving innovation in China, at least in the decade of the 1990s, but less so or not at all after the middle of the next decade.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2021.1937037 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Induced Innovation: Evidence from China's Secondary Industry (2020) Downloads
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:applec:v:53:y:2021:i:52:p:6075-6093

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RAEC20

DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2021.1937037

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Economics is currently edited by Anita Phillips

More articles in Applied Economics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-22
Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:53:y:2021:i:52:p:6075-6093