Assessing the Role of Technology Adoption in China's Growth Performance

Arbeitspapier

China has experienced a period of tremendous economic growth in recent years. In an attempt to explain this development, several existing growth-accounting studies reveal that impressively high rates of productivity growth have been at the heart of China's performance. This study investigates to what extent these productivity increases can be explained by technology-adoption theory. In less developed countries, the key element behind technological progress is technology adoption, the process of copying technological knowledge invented throughout the world. To uncover a measure of China's technological advances, the paper constructs a hybrid of some prominent technology-adoption models and calibrates it to reasonable parameter values. The calibrated version of the model is then combined with Chinese economic data. For the period 1978-2005, the analysis finds that the Chinese performance can be explained to a surprisingly large extent by the suggested technology-adoption framework. It can account for roughly 80% of China's productivity gains.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: EPRU Working Paper Series ; No. 2008-06

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development ; Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights: General ; Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity: General ; Economywide Country Studies: Europe
• Subject: technological progress ; technology adoption ; TFP ; China ; Technischer Fortschritt ; Technologiewahl ; Innovationsdiffusion ; Produktivität ; China

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Wirz, Nadja
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): University of Copenhagen, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU)
• (where): Copenhagen
• (when): 2008

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/82107
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET