IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fgv/epgrbe/v71y2017i1a64336.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Development Accounting, the Elasticity of Substitution, and Non-neutral Technological Change

Author

Listed:
  • Mello, Marcelo de Albuquerque e
  • Rodrigues, André de Souza

Abstract

We construct a broad panel with 84 countries over the period 1970-2014 with data from the Penn World Tables (PWT) 9.0. We apply the tools of development accounting to our panel. However, we depart from the traditional Cobb-Douglas hypothesis and Hicks-neutral technological change, and assume a Constant Elasticity of Substitution production function, which allows for a constant but non-unitary elasticity of substitution, and for non-neutral technological change. For different values of the elasticity of substitution, and different representation of technological change, we find that the cross-country variation in GDP per worker that can be accounted for by factor inputs is decreasing over time until the mid-2000s, when it reverses its decreasing trend. In addition, our estimates suggests that in the more recent period the proportion of the cross-country variation in GDP per worker explained by factor inputs is around 20%. Finally, we obtain similar results with broad panels from PWT versions 8.1 and 7.0, corroborating our initial findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Mello, Marcelo de Albuquerque e & Rodrigues, André de Souza, 2017. "Development Accounting, the Elasticity of Substitution, and Non-neutral Technological Change," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 71(1), May.
    • Handle: RePEc:fgv:epgrbe:v:71:y:2017:i:1:a:64336
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://periodicos.fgv.br/rbe/article/view/64336
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aiyar, Shekhar & Dalgaard, Carl-Johan, 2009. "Accounting for productivity: Is it OK to assume that the world is Cobb-Douglas?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 290-303, June.
    2. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for Cross-Country Income Differences," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 9, pages 679-741, Elsevier.
    3. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for cross-country income differences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 5266, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Reda Cherif & Mr. Rabah Arezki, 2010. "Development Accounting and the Rise of TFP," IMF Working Papers 2010/101, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), 2005. "Handbook of Economic Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    6. Caselli, Francesco, 2005. "Accounting for cross-country income differences," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3567, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrei A Levchenko & Jing Zhang, 2013. "The Global Labor Market Impact of Emerging Giants: A Quantitative Assessment," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 61(3), pages 479-519, August.
    2. Alfò, Marco & Carbonari, Lorenzo & Trovato, Giovanni, 2023. "On the effects of taxation on growth: an empirical assessment," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(5), pages 1289-1318, July.
    3. Monica Martinez-Bravo, 2017. "The Local Political Economy Effects of School Construction in Indonesia," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 256-289, April.
    4. Temple, Jonathan & Ying, Huikang, 2014. "Life During Structural Transformation," CEPR Discussion Papers 10297, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Huikang Ying, 2014. "Growth and Structural Change in a Dynamic Lagakos-Waugh Model," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 14/639, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    6. Filippetti, Andrea & Payrache, Antonio, 2010. "Productivity growth and catch up in Europe: A new perspective on total factor productivity differences," MPRA Paper 27212, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Restuccia, Diego & Yang, Dennis Tao & Zhu, Xiaodong, 2008. "Agriculture and aggregate productivity: A quantitative cross-country analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 234-250, March.
    8. Charles D. Brummitt & Kenan Huremović & Paolo Pin & Matthew H. Bonds & Fernando Vega-Redondo, 2017. "Contagious disruptions and complexity traps in economic development," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 1(9), pages 665-672, September.
    9. Axel Dreher & Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Friedrich Schneider, 2014. "The devil is in the shadow. Do institutions affect income and productivity or only official income and official productivity?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 121-141, January.
    10. Joan Hamory & Marieke Kleemans & Nicholas Y Li & Edward Miguel, 2021. "Reevaluating Agricultural Productivity Gaps with Longitudinal Microdata," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 1522-1555.
    11. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2010. "Civic Capital as the Missing Link," NBER Working Papers 15845, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Avsar, Veysel, 2014. "Partisanship and antidumping," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 190-195.
    13. Trevor Tombe & Xiaodong Zhu, 2019. "Trade, Migration, and Productivity: A Quantitative Analysis of China," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(5), pages 1843-1872, May.
    14. Levchenko, Andrei A. & Zhang, Jing, 2016. "The evolution of comparative advantage: Measurement and welfare implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 96-111.
    15. Shu-Shiuan Lu, 2012. "East Asian growth experience revisited from the perspective of a neoclassical model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(3), pages 359-376, July.
    16. Tomas Havranek & Zuzana Irsova & Lubica Laslopova & Olesia Zeynalova, 2020. "Skilled and Unskilled Labor Are Less Substitutable than Commonly Thought," Working Papers IES 2020/29, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Sep 2020.
    17. Mendez-Guerra, Carlos, 2020. "Labor Productivity, Capital Accumulation, and Aggregate Efficiency Across Countries: New Evidence for an Old Debate," MPRA Paper 99268, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Gilles Duranton, 2007. "From cities to productivity and growth in developing countries," Working Papers tecipa-306, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    19. Federico Huneeus & Richard Rogerson, 2020. "Heterogeneous Paths of Industrialization," Working Papers 2020-23, Princeton University. Economics Department..

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fgv:epgrbe:v:71:y:2017:i:1:a:64336. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Núcleo de Computação da FGV EPGE (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/epgvfbr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.