The sources of economic growth of the east asian newly industrialized countries

The sources of economic growth of the East Asian newly industrialized countries are analyzed empirically using the aggregate meta-production function framework. The sample consists of nine countries-the four East Asian newly industrialized countries (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and the Group-of-Five industrialized countries (France, West Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States). The results reaffirm the Boskin and Lau (Technical Paper 217, Stanford University, 1990) finding that technical progress can be represented as purely capital-augmenting in all countries. However, the hypothesis that there has been no technical progress during the postwar period cannot be rejected for the four East Asian newly industrialized countries. By far the most important source of economic growth of the East Asian newly industrialized countries is capital accumulation, accounting for between 48 and 72% of their economic growth, in contrast to the case of the Group-of-Five industrialized countries, in which technical progress has played the most important role, accounting for between 46 and 71% of their economic growth. An international comparison of the productive efficiencies of the Group-of-Five countries and the East Asian newly industrialized countries indicates no apparent convergence between the technologies of the two groups of countries. J. Japan. Int. Econ., September 1994, 8(3), pp. 235-271. Department of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-6072.