The Determinants of Technical Progress

Edward K. Y. Chen
Additional contact information
Edward K. Y. Chen: University of Hong Kong

Chapter 5 in Hyper-growth in Asian Economies, 1979, pp 90-108 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In the last chapter, we examined in some detail the role of technical progress in the economic growth of the five economies in our study. We attempted to measure the rate of technical progress by alternative methods. Without exception, we found that technical progress has played an important part in the rapid growth of all the economies during the subject period. However, the estimation of the rate of technical progress has so far been confined to the assumption of exogenous technical progress. We assumed that technical progress just appears like manna falling from heaven; it is costless and does not depend on other economic variables in our model. It is perhaps true that many of the factors that govern the rate and direction of technical progress are outside the usual boundaries of economics. Nevertheless, the treatment of technical progress as entirely exogenous is clearly unrealistic. Some factors we customarily include as variables in economic models may influence the rate of technical progress in important ways. In particular, it is very likely that technical progress can be influenced by investment activities. In the last decade or so, some attempts have been made to construct macro-economic models with the assumption of endogenous technical progress. This brighter side of the story has unfortunately not penetrated the empirical literature on growth and distribution.

Keywords: Technical Progress; Capital Good; Capital Inflow; Trend Term; Investment Activity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1979
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:pal:palchp:978-1-349-04251-7_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781349042517

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-04251-7_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().