East Asian Economic Growth: Miracle Or Bubble? Lawrence J
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East Asian Economic Growth: Miracle or Bubble? Lawrence J. Lau, Ph. D., D. Soc. Sc. (hon.) Kwoh-Ting Li Professor of Economic Development Department of Economics Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-6072, U.S.A. Yukichi Fukuzawa Lecture 2001 Far Eastern Meeting of the Econometric Society Kobe, July 20, 2001 Phone: 1-650-723-3708; Fax: 1-650-723-7145 Email: [email protected]; WebPages: http://www.stanford.edu/~ljlau The Economy of East Asia Today u East Asia is the fastest-growing region in the world over the past two decades, the East Asian currency crisis of 1997-1998 notwithstanding u Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan are the first “Newly Industrialized Economies” (NIEs) in East Asia u Industrialization has subsequently spread to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and to a lesser extent, Philippines (the wild-geese-flying pattern) u The real GDP of the People’s Republic of China has grown at an average annual rate of almost 10 percent in the two decades since Chinese economic reform began in 1979 u The East Asian economies survived the East Asian currency crisis and with the exception of Indonesia and possibly Philippines have largely recovered from their troughs u How has East Asia been able to achieve this economic performance? Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 2 Rates of Growth of Inputs & Outputs of the East Asian Developing & the G-7 Countries Table 3.1: Average Annual Rates of Growth of Real GDP, Capital, Labor and Human Capital (percent) (Extended sample period) Average Capital Utilized Labor Human Human Country Period GDP Stock Capital Employment Hours Capital Capital Hong Kong 66-95 7.4 8.8 8.6 2.6 2.4 4.8 2.1 S. Korea 60-95 8.5 12.3 12.3 3.1 3.3 6.2 4.0 Singapore 64-95 8.8 10.3 10.3 4.3 4.7 5.9 3.5 Taiwan 53-95 8.4 11.8 11.8 2.7 2.3 5.3 2.8 Indonesia 70-94 6.7 8.9 9.8 3.1 3.1 9.6 7.7 Malaysia 70-95 7.3 11.8 11.8 3.7 3.7 7.7 4.9 Philippines 66-95 4.0 5.8 5.9 3.2 3.2 10.8 8.5 Thailand 66-94 7.6 9.1 9.4 2.8 2.8 8.5 5.8 China 65-95 8.4 10.3 10.3 3.0 3.0 5.9 3.3 Japan 57-94 5.9 8.1 8.0 1.1 0.6 2.1 0.9 Canada 57-94 3.8 4.8 4.7 2.3 1.9 3.0 1.1 France 57-94 3.3 3.9 3.9 0.4 -0.2 2.0 1.1 W. Germany 57-94 3.2 3.3 3.1 0.1 -0.3 1.5 1.0 Italy 59-94 3.5 5.2 5.3 0.0 -0.3 1.8 1.3 UK 57-94 2.4 3.9 3.8 0.2 -0.1 1.2 0.8 US 49-94 3.1 3.0 3.3 1.7 1.3 2.1 0.8 Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 3 Real Output per Labor Hour 20 15 China Indonesia Malaysia Singapore Thailand 10 Non-Asian G5 Real Output per Labor Hour (1980 US$) 1980 US$ per Labor Hour Hong Kong S. Korea Philippines 5 Taiwan Japan 0 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 4 Human Capital Average Human Capital (Years of Schooling per Working-Age Person) 14 China Hong Kong Indonesia S. Korea Malaysia Philippines 12 Singapore Taiwan Thailand Japan Non-Asian G5 10 8 6 4 Years per Working-Age Person 2 0 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 5 R&D Expenditure as a Percentage of GDP Percentage of Total R&D Expenditure in GDP (Current Prices) 3.50 USA FRA GER UK JPN HON 3.00 KOR SIN TWN 2.50 2.00 Percent 1.50 1.00 0.50 0.00 1963 1966 1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1987 1990 1993 Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 6 R&D Capital 900 R&D Capital Stock (Billion 1980 US$) 800 700 US Canada France W. Germany Italy UK 600 Japan S. Korea Singapore Taiwan 500 400 Billion 1980 US$ 300 200 100 0 1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 1959 1961 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 7 Accounting for Economic Growth u Decomposing the growth of output by its proximate sources: u How much of the growth of output can be attributed to the growth of measured inputs, tangible capital and labor? and u How much of the growth of output can be attributed to technical progress (aka growth in total factor productivity), i.e. improvements in productive efficiency over time? u TECHNICAL PROGRESS (GROWTH IN TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY) = GROWTH IN OUTPUT HOLDING ALL MEASURED INPUTS CONSTANT Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 8 Interpretation of Technical Progress (Growth of Total Factor Productivity) u Not “Manna from Heaven” u The effects of growth in unmeasured “Intangible Capital” (Human Capital, R&D Capital, Goodwill (Advertising and Market Development), Information System, Software, etc.) u The effects of growth in other omitted and unmeasured inputs (Land, Natural Resources, Water Resources, Environment, etc.) u The effects of improvements in technical and allocative efficiency over time, e.g., learning-by-doing u “Residual” or “Measure of Our Ignorance” Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 9 Difficulties in the Measurement of Technical Progress (Total Factor Productivity) u (1) The confounding of economies of scale and technical progress u Solution: pooling time-series data across different countries--at any given time there are different scales in operation; the same scale can be observed at different times u (2) The under-identification of the biases of scale effects and technical progress u Bias in scale effects--as output is expanded under conditions of constant prices of inputs, the demands for different inputs are increased at differential rates u Bias in technical progress--over time, again under constant prices, the demands of different inputs per unit output decreases at different rates u Solution: econometric estimation with flexible functional forms Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 10 Two Leading Alternative Approaches to Growth Accounting u (1) Econometric Estimation of the Aggregate Production Function, E.g., the Cobb-Douglas production function gt Y = A e K a L b t 0 t t or, taking natural logarithms ln Y = ln A + a ln K + b lnL + gt t 0 t t u (2) Traditional Growth-Accounting Formula u Are Differences in Empirical Results Due to Differences in Methodologies or Assumptions or Both? Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 11 The Meta-Production Function Approach as an Alternative u Introduced by Hayami (1969) and Hayami & Ruttan (1970, 1985) u Haymai & Ruttan assume that Fi(.) = F(.): u Yit = F (Kit, Lit, t), i = 1, …, n; t = 0, …, T u Which implies that all countries have identical production functions in terms of measured inputs u Thus pooling of data across multiple countries is justified Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 12 Extension by Boskin, Lau & Yotopoulos u Extended by Lau & Yotopoulos (1989) and Boskin & Lau (1990) to allow time-varying, country- and commodity-specific differences in efficiency u Applied by Boskin, Kim, Lau, & Park to the G-5 countries, G-7 countries, the East Asian Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs) and developing economies in the Asia/Pacific region Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 13 The Extended Meta-Production Function Approach: The Basic Assumptions (1) (1) All countries have the same underlying aggregate production function F(.) in terms of standardized, or “efficiency-equivalent”, quantities of outputs and inputs, i.e. (1) Y*it = F(K*it,L*it) , i = 1,...,n. Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 14 The Extended Meta-Production Function Approach: The Basic Assumptions (2) (2) The measured quantities of outputs and inputs of the different countries may be converted into the unobservable standardized, or "efficiency-equivalent", units of outputs and inputs by multiplicative country- and output- and input-specific time-varying augmentation factors, Aij(t)'s, i = 1,...,n; j = output (0), capital (K), and labor (L): (2) Y*it = Ai0(t)Yit ; (3) K*it = AiK(t)Kit ; (4) L*it = AiL(t)Lit ; i = 1, ..., n. Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 15 The Extended Meta-Production Function Approach: The Basic Assumptions (2) u In the empirical implementation, the commodity augmentation factors are assumed to have the constant geometric form with respect to time. Thus: t (5) Y*it = Ai0 (1+ci0) Yit ; t (6) K*it = AiK (1+ciK) Kit ; t (7) L*it = AiL (1+ciL) Lit ; i = 1,...,n. Ai0's, Aij's = augmentation level parameters ci0's, cij's = augmentation rate parameters Lawrence J. Lau, Stanford University 16 The Extended Meta-Production Function Approach: The Basic Assumptions (2) u For at least one country, say the ith, the constants Ai0 and Aij's can be set identically at unity, reflecting the fact that "efficiency-equivalent" outputs and inputs can be measured only relative to some standard. u The Ai0 and Aij's for the U.S. are taken to be identically unity. u Subject to such a normalization, the commodity augmentation level and rate parameters can be estimated simultaneously with the parameters of the aggregate production function.