Measurement of total factor productivity growth in countries with high rates of structural change.

Abstract

In a neoclassical framework, high rates of economic growth can be sustained if the main source of this growth is improvements in technical efficiency, measured by Total Factor Productivity Growth (TFPG). This study argues that traditional aggregate growth accounting methods might not be a useful measure of technological gains when such gains are predominantly sector-specific. In rapidly industrializing countries, rates of structural change from changing of industries are high. This allows us to form the testable hypothesis: the observed change in the capital labor ratio in response to a change in the wage to capital cost ratio should be lower in economies with high rates of structural change than in economies with lower rates of structural change. We find robust empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis.