Studies of technical change
Abstract
This thesis explores a number of questions related to the factors that influence
productivity and technological progress at both aggregate and micro-levels. The main
contribution of the current work is its attempt to relate all the studies to developing and
transition countries in Eastern Europe.
The first chapter develops an endogenous growth model of sector productivity growth
that accounts for varying levels of IPR protection usually present in developing and
transition countries. One and two-country versions of the model are explored to show
how the results change in the presence of international trade, when one country is a
technology producer and another a technology consumer. The main finding of the
model suggests that in the presence of international trade with a knowledge-producing
country, low levels of IPR protection lead to higher levels of sector productivity growth
in a technology-consuming country.
The second chapter empirically assesses microeconomic exporting-productivity links
using the data for Ukrainian manufacturing firms for the years 2000-2005.
The results of the estimation show that firms with higher total factor productivity (TFP)
in the period prior to entry are much more likely to enter export markets. Age, size and
intangible assets of the firm also have significant positive influence on the probability of
exporting. Testing of the learning-by-exporting effect is implemented with the use of
the propensity score matching technique to address the issues of endogeneity and
sample selection. The results for the whole universe of firms in the dataset go in line
with common trends, and suggest significant positive post-entry productivity effect. At
the industry level, the results confirm the presence of the learning-by-exporting effect in
most of the industries included in the analysis.
The third chapter concentrates on continuous exporters to study the impact of the type
of export dynamics on the firm-level changes in the TFP. The estimation is performed
for different types of export markets and products. The results of the analysis confirm
that exporting to the more technologically advanced countries results in higher
productivity gains as a result of the access to new superior technologies and better
managerial practices. Productivity gains can also be higher when capital intensive
products are exported to the economically advanced markets.