Technological Progress and Growth in Selected Pacific Countries

This paper assess the sources of technological progress that determined GDP and labor productivity growth across a group of leading Pacific economies - Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. - during the period 1980-2006. We consider three alternative sources of technological progress: disembodied and factor-embodied technical change to capital and labor. The contribution to growth of each of these sources is evaluated using both traditional and equilibrium growth accounting procedures. We find that capital accumulation is the main determinant of GDP growth in Australia, Japan and the U.S., whereas the main contribution in South Korea is given by Total Factor Productivity (disembodied technology). In all the considered economies, about half of the contribution to growth of capital-embodied technical change comes from Information and Communication Technologies.