Growth Process in East Asian Manufacturing Industries

Although it has been previously accepted that Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan have achieved the 'economic miracle' of maintaining high economic growth for several decades prior to the Asian financial crisis, recent literature has now cast doubt upon this economic supposed success. Attempting to overcome methodological limitations and underlying assumptions of other studies, The Growth Process in East Asian Manufacturing Industries re-examines the role of total factor productivity (TFP) growth and aims to identify the sources of output growth in these East Asian economies. Chia-Hung Sun aims to explain how TFP growth differs from technological progress, and demonstrates why this study favours the use of the varying coefficients frontier model rather than the conventional scholastic frontier approach. He goes on to statistically test whether manufacturing industries in East Asia homogeneously applied the best practice production technology, and investigates the TFP growth slowdown in East Asian manufacturing sectors. Potential links between technological progress (or technological efficiency change) and structural transformation are considered, and the growth in high-tech and low-tech industries are compared. Using sensitivity tests to consolidate the findings of this study and a comparison with earlier TFP studies for each of the five economies analysed, this book will be a valuable point of reference for economists, researchers and policymakers specialising in Asian economies. Advanced undergraduate and post-graduate students in economic development and economic growth will also find the book of great interest.