Absorptive capability and economic growth: how do countries catch-up?
实证研究了自1960年代以来技术追赶在解释国家间生产率增长中的作用，利用海外留学生、电信和出版物数据构建吸收能力新指标，发现理工科留学生多的国家后续增长更快。
This paper empirically investigates the importance of technological catch-up in explaining productivity growth in a sample countries since the 1960s. New proxies for a country's absorptive capability – based on data for students studying abroad, telecommunications and publications – are used. Various regression models are estimated, with both GDP per worker growth and multifactor productivity growth as dependent variables. A specific focus is on influential observations and the robustness of results. The results indicate that absorptive capability is a factor in explaining growth, with the most robust finding that countries with relatively high numbers of students studying science or engineering abroad experience faster subsequent growth. However, the paper also indicates that the significance of coefficients varies across specifications and samples, suggesting caution in focusing on individual results. Key words: technological catch-up, absorptive capability, economic growth