IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2015-002.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Increasing Productivity Growth in Middle Income Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Aidar Abdychev
  • La-Bhus Fah Jirasavetakul
  • Mr. Andrew W Jonelis
  • Mr. Lamin Y Leigh
  • Ashwin Moheeput
  • Friska Parulian
  • Ara Stepanyan
  • Albert Touna Mama

Abstract

Many small middle-income countries (SMICs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have experienced a moderation in growth in recent years. Although factor accumulation, most notably capital deepening, was crucial to the success of many SMICs historically, this growth model appears to have run its course. The analysis in this paper suggests that the decline in the contribution of total factor productivity (TFP) to growth is largely responsible for the slowdown in trend growth in many SMICs, which highlights the need for policy actions to reinvigorate productivity growth. This paper explores the question of what kind of structural policies could boost productivity growth in SMICs and the political economy factors that may be contributing to the slow implementation of these critical reforms in these countries. The findings suggest that although macroeconomic stability and trade openness are necessary for productivity growth, they are not sufficient. SMICs need to improve the quality of their public spending, most notably in education to minimize the skill mismatch in the labor market, reduce the regulatory burden on firms, improve access to finance by small and medium-sized enterprises and create the enabling environment to facilitate structural transformation in these economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Aidar Abdychev & La-Bhus Fah Jirasavetakul & Mr. Andrew W Jonelis & Mr. Lamin Y Leigh & Ashwin Moheeput & Friska Parulian & Ara Stepanyan & Albert Touna Mama, 2015. "Increasing Productivity Growth in Middle Income Countries," IMF Working Papers 2015/002, International Monetary Fund.
  • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2015/002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42595
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aiyar, Shekhar & Duval, Romain & Puy, Damien & Wu, Yiqun & Zhang, Longmei, 2018. "Growth slowdowns and the middle-income trap," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 22-37.
    2. Thomas Herndon & Michael Ash & Robert Pollin, 2014. "Does high public debt consistently stifle economic growth? A critique of Reinhart and Rogoff," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 38(2), pages 257-279.
    3. Robert J. Barro, 2013. "Inflation and Economic Growth," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(1), pages 121-144, May.
    4. Fleisher, Belton & Li, Haizheng & Zhao, Min Qiang, 2010. "Human capital, economic growth, and regional inequality in China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 215-231, July.
    5. Rachel Griffith & Stephen Redding & John Van Reenen, 2004. "Mapping the Two Faces of R&D: Productivity Growth in a Panel of OECD Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 883-895, November.
    6. Lewis, W Arthur, 1980. "The Slowing Down of the Engine of Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(4), pages 555-564, September.
    7. Robert G. King & Ross Levine, 1993. "Finance and Growth: Schumpeter Might Be Right," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 717-737.
    8. Levine, Ross & Zervos, Sara, 1998. "Stock Markets, Banks, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 537-558, June.
    9. Pedroni, Peter, 2004. "Panel Cointegration: Asymptotic And Finite Sample Properties Of Pooled Time Series Tests With An Application To The Ppp Hypothesis," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 597-625, June.
    10. Mr. Boileau Loko & Mame Astou Diouf, 2009. "Revisiting the Determinants of Productivity Growth - What’s new?," IMF Working Papers 2009/225, International Monetary Fund.
    11. De Gregorio, Jose, 1993. "Inflation, taxation, and long-run growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 271-298, June.
    12. Khalifa Ghali, 1999. "Government size and economic growth: evidence from a multivariate cointegration analysis," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(8), pages 975-987.
    13. Coe, David T. & Helpman, Elhanan, 1995. "International R&D spillovers," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 859-887, May.
    14. Daron Acemoglu & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2001. "Productivity Differences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 563-606.
    15. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    16. Mr. Atish R. Ghosh & Mr. Steven T Phillips, 1998. "Inflation, Disinflation, and Growth," IMF Working Papers 1998/068, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Fischer, Stanley, 1993. "The role of macroeconomic factors in growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 485-512, December.
    18. Alberto Behar, 2010. "Would More Skills Raise Demand for Those Who Do Not Get Them? Evidence from South African Manufacturing," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 19(4), pages 496-535, August.
    19. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt & David Mayer-Foulkes, 2005. "The Effect of Financial Development on Convergence: Theory and Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 173-222.
    20. Benhabib, Jess & Spiegel, Mark M., 1994. "The role of human capital in economic development evidence from aggregate cross-country data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 143-173, October.
    21. Edward L. Glaeser & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "Do Institutions Cause Growth?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 271-303, September.
    22. William Easterly, 2006. "Reliving the 1950s: the big push, poverty traps, and takeoffs in economic development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 289-318, December.
    23. Edwards, Sebastian, 1998. "Openness, Productivity and Growth: What Do We Really Know?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(447), pages 383-398, March.
    24. Peter Pedroni, 2000. "Fully Modified OLS for Heterogeneous Cointegrated Panels," Department of Economics Working Papers 2000-03, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    25. David Roodman, 2009. "A Note on the Theme of Too Many Instruments," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 135-158, February.
    26. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, "undated". "The Productivity of Nations," Working Papers 96012, Stanford University, Department of Economics.
    27. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1993. "Innovation and Growth in the Global Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262570971, April.
    28. Anthony Enisan Akinlo, 2005. "Impact of Macroeconomic Factors on Total Factor Productivity in Sub-Saharan African Countries," WIDER Working Paper Series RP2005-39, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    29. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    30. McGuckin, Robert & Ark, Bart van, 2005. "Productivity and participation: an international comparison," GGDC Research Memorandum 200578, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.
    31. Aisen, Ari & Veiga, Francisco José, 2013. "How does political instability affect economic growth?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 151-167.
    32. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1, 25th A), pages 1-118.
    33. David Dollar & Aart Kraay, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and Poverty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 114(493), pages 22-49, February.
    34. Author-Name: Jakob B Madsen & James B. Ang, 2013. "The Asian Growth Miracle: Factor Accumulation, The Demographic Transition And R&D-Driven Growth," Monash Economics Working Papers 23-13, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    35. Ding Lu, 2002. "Sectoral Factor Reallocation And Productivity Growth: Recent Trends In The Chinese Economy," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 27(2), pages 95-111, December.
    36. Mr. Jean-Claude Nachega & Mr. Thomson Fontaine, 2006. "Economic Growth and Total Factor Productivity in Niger," IMF Working Papers 2006/208, International Monetary Fund.
    37. Coe, David T & Helpman, Elhanan & Hoffmaister, Alexander W, 1997. "North-South R&D Spillovers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 107(440), pages 134-149, January.
    38. repec:dgr:rugggd:200578 is not listed on IDEAS
    39. David N. Weil & Oded Galor, 2000. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 806-828, September.
    40. Xavier Sala-I-Martin & Gernot Doppelhofer & Ronald I. Miller, 2004. "Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 813-835, September.
    41. Roubini, Nouriel & Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1992. "Financial repression and economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 5-30, July.
    42. Romer, Paul M., 1990. "Human capital and growth: Theory and evidence," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 251-286, January.
    43. Raphael Espinoza, 2012. "Factor Accumulation and the Determinants of TFP in the GCC," OxCarre Working Papers 094, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    44. International Monetary Fund, 2007. "Asia Rising: A Sectoral Perspective," IMF Working Papers 2007/130, International Monetary Fund.
    45. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    46. Robert J. Barro, 2001. "Human Capital and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 12-17, May.
    47. Ranis, Gustav, 1989. "The role of institutions in transition growth: The East Asian newly industrializing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 17(9), pages 1443-1453, September.
    48. Michael Danquah & Enrique Moral-Benito & Bazoumana Ouattara, 2014. "TFP growth and its determinants: a model averaging approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 227-251, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nguyen Thang Dao & Kerstin Burghaus & Ottmar Edenhofer, 2017. "Self-Enforcing Intergenerational Social Contracts for Pareto Improving Pollution Mitigation," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(1), pages 129-173, September.

    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. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    2. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2011. "Econometrics For Grumblers: A New Look At The Literature On Cross‐Country Growth Empirics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 109-155, February.
    3. Mark Rogers, 2003. "A Survey of Economic Growth," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 79(244), pages 112-135, March.
    4. Kluge, Jan & Lappoehn, Sarah & Plank, Kerstin, 2020. "The Determinants of Economic Competitiveness," IHS Working Paper Series 24, Institute for Advanced Studies.
    5. T. Gries & R. Grundmann & I. Palnau & M. Redlin, 2017. "Innovations, growth and participation in advanced economies - a review of major concepts and findings," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 293-351, April.
    6. Bravo-Ortega, Claudio & García Marín, Álvaro, 2011. "R&D and Productivity: A Two Way Avenue?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(7), pages 1090-1107, July.
    7. Rao, B. Bhaskara & Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya, 2011. "Globalization and growth in the low income African countries with the extreme bounds analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 795-805, May.
    8. Bittencourt, Manoel, 2011. "Inflation and financial development: Evidence from Brazil," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 91-99.
    9. Eberhardt, Markus & Teal, Francis, 2008. "Modeling technology and technological change in manufacturing: how do countries differ?," MPRA Paper 10690, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Sugata Marjit & Anwesha Basu & C. Veeramani, 2019. "Growth Gains from Trade," CESifo Working Paper Series 7905, CESifo.
    11. Karina Alfaro‐Moreno & José Javier Núñez‐Velázquez & Luisa Fernanda Bernat‐Diaz, 2019. "How does wage polarization affect productivity? The case of Spanish regions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(3), pages 1317-1333, June.
    12. Vieira, Flávio & MacDonald, Ronald & Damasceno, Aderbal, 2012. "The role of institutions in cross-section income and panel data growth models: A deeper investigation on the weakness and proliferation of instruments," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 127-140.
    13. Smaoui, Houcem & Nechi, Salem, 2017. "Does sukuk market development spur economic growth?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 136-147.
    14. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Kotschy, Rainer & Prettner, Klaus & Schünemann, Johannes, 2024. "Health and economic growth: Reconciling the micro and macro evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    15. Indunil De Silva & Sudarno Sumarto, 2015. "Dynamics Of Growth, Poverty And Human Capital: Evidence From Indonesian Sub-National Data," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 40(2), pages 1-33, June.
    16. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "The Impact of Fundamental Development Factors on Different Income Groups: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113128, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Bos, J.W.B. & Economidou, C. & Koetter, M. & Kolari, J.W., 2010. "Do all countries grow alike?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 113-127, January.
    18. Gnangnon, Sèna Kimm, 2019. "Financial Development and Tax Revenue in Developing Countries: Investigating the International Trade and Economic Growth Channels," EconStor Preprints 206628, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    19. Ulaşan, Bülent, 2012. "Cross-country growth empirics and model uncertainty: An overview," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 6, pages 1-69.
    20. Chang, Roberto & Kaltani, Linda & Loayza, Norman V., 2009. "Openness can be good for growth: The role of policy complementarities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 33-49, September.

    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:imf:imfwpa:2015/002. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.