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Title:	The relationship between TFP and human capital: evidence from Asean countries
Authors:	Du Yuhong (P78011)
Supervisor:	Abu Hassan Shaari Md Nor, Prof. Dr.
Keywords:	Human capital -- Southeast Asia
Issue Date:	6-Aug-2018
Description:	As the main tool of exploring the source of economic growth and measuring the quality of growth, total factor productivity is always the debated topic. For developing countries, the speed of convergence to technological frontier actually is a catch-up process which heavily depends upon the level of human capital. Human capital, as an important carrier of knowledge and technology progress, undoubtedly plays a crucial role in impelling the growth of TFP. With regard to the relationship between human capital and the TFP growth, this dissertation will further explore it from three aspects. The first objective is to test the nonlinearity in the relationship between human capital and TFP growth; and to find the effects of a catch-up process represented by the interaction between human capital and technology gap, on the TFP convergence if human capital reaches a certain level. Thus, using two-way fixed-effect Benhabib-Spiegel model, this study finds that the human capital is negatively related to TFP growth rate; and the catch-up term has a positive effect. Furthermore, using threshold-seeking procedure proposed by Hansen (1999), this study finds that existence of thresholds in terms of human capital. Specifically, there are two thresholds in the human capital and a single threshold in the catch-up term. Thus, we find that there is the nonlinearity effect in the relationship between human capital and TFP growth. The second objective is to find whether there is spatial spillover effects of human capital and its composition on TFP. Using Spatial Durbin Panel Model (SDM) with two-way fixed effect, this chapter finds spatial spillover effects of factors upon TFP growth with the different magnitudes. Empirical results show that human capital has a direct negative effect on TFP growth of a nation; and its spillover effect on that of neighbouring countries is negative in a bigger absolute value. By contrast, the direct effect and spillover effect of the catchup term is positive, with a larger magnitude than that of human capital in absolute terms. The third objective is to investigate the long-run equilibrium relationship between human capital inequality and cumulative TFP growth rate. Both the first-generation and second-generation panel unit root tests are used and the long-run equilibrium relationship among variables are confirmed by using the Pedroni and Westerlund panel cointegration tests. Using the FMOLS and DOLS estimators, the results for the whole panel show that human capital inequality is negatively affecting the cumulative TFP growth rate suggesting that the unequal distribution of human capital is harmful to regional TFP growth and an improvement in human capital inequality promotes TFP growth.,Ph.D.
Pages:	120
Call Number:	HC441.A1Y836 2018 tesis
Publisher:	UKM, Bangi
Appears in Collections:	Faculty of Economy and Management / Fakulti Ekonomi dan Pengurusan

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