Technology Choices and Growth: Testing and Expanding the

propositions of New Structural Economics

R. L. Bruno, E. Douarin, J. Korosteleva and S. Radosevic

Prepared for the Transition Economies Meets New Structural Economics

SSEES, UCL June 25-26, 2013

Outline

• Key objectives.• Theoretical considerations.

– Development Strategies and Technology Choice: the New Structural Economics (NSE) paradigm

• Data, Technology Choice Index (TCI) construction and methodology.

• Financial sector distortions and TCI.• Hypotheses Testing.

– Empirical results I: TCI and growth.– Empirical results II: Financial sector inefficiencies, TCI, and

growth.

• Conclusions. 2

Key objectives

• We test the basic propositions of NSE, i.e. the relationship between TCI and growth:– We employ a larger sample of countries (164) over a longer

time span (1963-2009).

• We further expand this theory to transition economics (TE) by testing whether key propositions of NSE hold for the TE group, and its sub-groups, namely Former Soviet Union (FSU) and Central European Economies (CEE).

Are transition economies special?• We examine the association between financial sector

distortions and TCI with further implications for growth.3

Development Strategies and Technology Choice Index (TCI): the NSE paradigm

• Key propositions of NSE:– Long term growth is feasible only in contexts where policies

and institutions are conducive to the development of sectors consistent with the Comparative Advantage of a country: CAF strategy (following).

– TCI is a valid proxy to capture whether a country follow a CAD strategy, comparative advantage defying (vis-à-vis a CAF strategy):

• Lin (2012): sample of 122 countries, time period including 1962-1999 (see also Lin 2003)

• On average, TCI is significantly negatively correlated with long-term growth measured by GDP pc.

– TCI is expected to be highly correlated to financial distortions: the higher the ‘structural’ distortion the higher the financial one.4

How to compute the Technology Choice Index (Lin 2012)

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Technology Choice Index (cont.)

• What is TCI capturing?– Higher TCI = more distortion, proxy for CAD strategy– A context in which policies and institutions favour a capital-

intensive manufacturing sector (raising value added in manufacturing AVM, and lowering labour LM)

– This compares with other approaches in the literature:• Lewis's two sectors development model (1954) (role of unlimited

supply of labour) • Rostow’s stages of economic growth (1991) (V: from precondition to

take off…to beyond mass consumption)• “Big push” idea, Rosenstein-Rodan (1943) (Eastern and S.E. Europe)

– Key point: the shift from low productivity primary production to higher productivity manufacturing is a pivotal stage in the development process of an economy. This is not always successful, though. 6

TE meets NSE: an initial assessment

• On an intuitive level, one would expect the countries of CEE and FSU to be primary example of the negative relationship between CAD and growth.

• During central planning: heavily distorted economies with strong emphasis on capital intensive manufacturing: surely a CAD!

• With transition, a progressive move towards more liberal market economies (with a lot of variations across countries though): surely a move towards a CAF!

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Figure 1: TCI2: the Manufacturing Sector productivity in transition economies

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68

02

46

80

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68

02

46

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1960 1980 2000 2020 1960 1980 2000 2020 1960 1980 2000 2020 1960 1980 2000 2020 1960 1980 2000 2020

Albania Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bulgaria Croatia Czech Republic Estonia Georgia

Hungary Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lithuania

Macedonia Moldova Poland Romania Russian Federation

Serbia Slovakia Slovenia Tajikistan Ukraine

TC

I2

year_numGraphs by Country

TCI and Financial sector distortions

• The CAD and CAF strategy cannot be assessed in an institutional vacuum (Lin et al. 2011).

• A country adopting a CAD strategy will require economic distortions introduced through substantial government interventions on the economy (“forced”).

• The development of financial structure is argued to be endogenous to the government's growth strategy with a CAD strategy being associated with a financial structure deviating farther away from its estimated optimal structure (Lin and Xu, 2012).

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Measures of financial distortions

• Size vs. efficiency• Financial structure distortions (size)

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Size 1=

Size 2=

• Financial structure gap (Demirguc-Kunt et al. 2011)• Estimate financial structure ratio based on sample of

OECD countries.• Calculate sample-wide country-year residuals based on

the estimated regressions, and take the logarithm.

Measures of financial distortions

• Banking Inefficiency– the net interest margin is equal to the value of a bank’s

net interest revenue as a share of its total earning assets.– overhead cost is the value of a bank’s overhead costs as

share of its total assets.

Higher level of interest margins and overhead costs indicate lower levels of banking efficiency (lower

competition).

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Hypotheses

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Type of relevance of NSE propositions

Hypotheses

Time relevance •TCI is especially relevant prior to the 1980s but not for later periods in view of decrease incidence of autonomous development strategies •After 1980s we should observe lower level of TCI as effects of CAF strategies and thus the relationship between TCI and growth should be weaker

Relevance for transition economies

•Transition economies differ from the rest of the sample: a negative relationship between TCI and growth is less likely for them, but we expect some differences across CEE and FSU with the TCI in the former being positively related to growth, whereas TCI in the latter being negatively associated with growth (think at the comparatively more advanced manufacturing sector of CEE vis-a-vis FSU)

Financial distortions •Higher level of TCI is associated with a financial structure deviating farther away from its estimated optimal level, but this effect differs across group of countries. •The financial sector inefficiencies should be strongly correlated to TCI in highly distorted economies. •The link between TCI and financial distortions is less pronounced in transition countries, being more robust in FSU countries and less so in Central and East European economies. •The effect of TCI on growth is further reinforced via larger values of deviation of the optimal financial structure from its actual one.

Table 1: Estimating the effect of TCI2 on growth: robust regression results

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Dependent variable: growth rate of the GDP pc (constant 2000 US$)

(1) (2) (3) (4)

Ln TCI2 -0.007*** (0.002)

-0.008***(0.002)

-0.008***(0.002)

0.004(0.003)

Ln_gdp_pc_(start decade) -0.003*** 0.001

-0.003*** 0.001

-0.002** 0.001

-0.040*** 0.004

Ln_Population Total _(start decade) 0.001** (0.001)

0.001** (0.001)

0.001** (0.001)

-0.025*** (0.006)

ln_axrateLCUperUS 0.001*** (0.000)

0.001*** (0.000)

0.001*** (0.000)

-.002*** (.001)

Distance to equator 0.015**(0.007)

0.013*(0.007)

0.011*(0.007)

-

Landlocked -0.003 (0.003)

-0.003 (0.003)

-0.003 (0.003)

-

Ln TCI2_x_ TE - 0.015**(0.007)

- -

Ln TCI2_x_ CEE - - 0.017**(0.007)

0.032**(0.014)

Ln TCI2_x_ FSU - - -.147*(0.083)

-.162**(0.07)

Constant 0.035*** (0.013)

0.034*** (0.013)

0.031*** (0.012)

.566*** (0.088)

Time fixed effects (decade) Yes Yes Yes YesCountry fixed effects No No No YesObservations 439 439 439 439F-st. 15.84*** 15.11*** 14.14*** 10.90***

Source: World Bank Financial Structure Dataset (2012), WB WDI 2012 edition; UNIDONote: *,**,*** denote significance on the 10, 5 and 1-percent level, respectively. Standard errors reported in parentheses.

TE meets TCI

• Unexpectedly low level of TCI before and at the onset of transition: low level of distortions?

• Positive relationship between growth and TCI for this sub-sample of countries, when TE are pooled together.

• Quite puzzling!• Variations in the relationship between TCI and

growth across CEE and FSU, though.

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TCI2 in Highly Distorted Economies

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102

030

405

01

020

304

050

102

03

0405

01

020

304

050

102

03

0405

01

020

304

050

1960 1980 2000 2020 1960 1980 2000 2020

1960 1980 2000 2020 1960 1980 2000 2020 1960 1980 2000 2020 1960 1980 2000 2020

Benin Bolivia Brazil Burkina Faso Burundi Cameroon

Central African Republic China Côte d'Ivoire Ecuador El Salvador Eritrea

Ethiopia Gambia Ghana Iran Kyrgyzstan Lesotho

Malawi Nicaragua Niger Nigeria Papua New Guinea Paraguay

Peru Rwanda Senegal Somalia Suriname Syria

Tanzania Thailand Uganda Zambia

TC

I2

yearGraphs by Country_NUM

Table 2: Estimating the effect of TCI2 on growth. Highly-distorted countries: robust regression results

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Dependent variable: growth rate of the GDP pc (constant 2000 US$)

(1) (2) Excluding potential outliers

Ln TCI2 -0.004 (0.002)

-0.004 (0.003)

Ln_gdp_pc_(start decade) -0.001** 0.001

-0.001*** 0.001

Ln_Population Total _(start decade) 0.001 (0.001)

0.001 (0.001)

ln_xrateLCUperUS 0.003*** (0.000)

0.001*** (0.000)

Distance to equator 0.016**(0.007)

0.015**(0.007)

Landlocked -0.001 (0.003)

-0.002 (0.003)

Ln TCI2_x_ HDD -0.004**(0.002)

-0.004*(0.002)

Constant 0.036*** (0.013)

0.036*** (0.013)

Decade time fixed effects Yes YesObservations 439 429F-st. 14.75*** 14.15***

Source: World Bank Financial Structure Dataset (2012), WB WDI 2012 edition; UNIDONote: *,**,*** denote significance on the 10, 5 and 1-percent level, respectively. Standard errors reported in parentheses.

Highly Distorted Economies meet TCI

• Highly distorted economies seem to show a behaviour fully predicted by the NSE.

• Negative relationship between growth and TCI for this sub-sample of countries, when are pooled together.

• Variations in the relationship between TCI and growth across CEE and FSU, HDD.

• A non-monotonous relationship?

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Financial structure gap and TCI: Empirical Results

• The relationship between TCI and financial structure gap differs across countries depending on the level of TCI.

• Our results suggest that deviation from optimal financial structure is only significant for relatively high values of TCI2 (75th quantile) for our sample of countries as a whole, and for the group of FSU countries specifically.

• The positive relationship between TCI2 and distorted financial structure is strongly and positively significant for the group of Highly-distorted economies regardless of the range of values for TCI2. 18

Table 3: TCI and Financial Structure Gap: Simultaneous Quantile Regression

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Quantile/ Dependent variable: TCI2

25th R-sq 50th R-sq 75th Rsq Obs

Whole sample Size1 -0.02**

(0.009)0.08 -0.003

(0.011).20 0.018**

(0.01)0.31 1233

Size2 -0.023*** 0.08 -0.007(0.01)

.20 0.015*(0.008)

0.31 1229

Transition economiesSize1 0.04

(0.04)0.08 -0.01

(0.03)0.03 0.01

(0.017)0.27 200

Size2 0.04(0.05)

0.08 -0.01(0.03)

.20 0.018(0.02)

0.27 198

CEESize1 -0.01

(0.027)0.003 -0.026

(0.039)0.03 0.006

(0.034)0.12 159

Size2 0.001(0.05)

0.002 0.014(0.05)

0.02 -0.01(0.03)

.10 157

FSUSize1 0.035

(0.05)0.22 00.07

(0.055)0.31 0.16***

(0.04)0.51 41

Size2 0.001(.5)

0.22 0.029(0.064)

0.30 0.09(0.06)

.48 41

Highly-distorted economiesSize1 .20***

(0.068)0.09 0.25***

(0.07)0.19 0.16***

(0.03)0.22 124

Size2 .19**(0.08)

0.06 .18**(0.07)

.17 0.14***(0.03)

.22 124

Source: World Bank Financial Structure Dataset (2012), WB WDI 2012 edition; UNIDO . Note: *,**,*** denote significance on the 10, 5 and 1-percent level, respectively. Bootstrapped standard errors, clustered by country year reported in parentheses. The regression controls for the level of economic development proxied by ln of GDP pc at const 2000 US dollars. For reproducibility of the results we run 2000 replications with seed set at 1001.

Banking sector inefficiencies and TCI

• There is positive association between bank inefficiency and high values of TCI in the whole sample.

• Decrease in net interest margin and respectively increase in the degree of competition in banking sector has positive effect in Central and Eastern European countries for reducing TCI, we fail to find any significant results for FSU economies, though.

• Similarly, to financial structure results we get robust results for the group of Highly-distorted economies, suggesting that reduction in net interest margin, and consequently increase in bank efficiency will facilitate a move towards CAF strategy.

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Table 4: TCI2 and Bank Inefficiency measures: Simultaneous Quantile Regression results

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Quantile/ Dependent variable: TCI2

25th R-sq 50th R-sq 75th Rsq Obs

Whole economyOverhead costs -.13***

(0.02).1 -0.08***

(0.03).23 0.000

(0.03)0.35 1246

NetIntMargin -0.03(0.04)

0.08 0.01(0.03)

.21 0.09***(0.032)

.34 1269

Transition economiesOverhead costs 0.07

(.1).14 .24***

(0.058)0.03 0.19

(0.085)0.31 233

NetIntMargin 0.01(.11)

.13 0.005(0.074)

.24 0.01(0.075)

.30 238

CEEOverhead costs 0.07

(0.08)0.01 .26***

(0.07)0.09 0.23***

(0.06).16 172

NetIntMargin .18**(0.08)

0.02 .23***(0.07)

0.09 0.23***(0.065)

.13 170

FSUOverhead costs -.43*

(.233).21 -.41

(.33).22 -.44

(.32).28 172

NetIntmargin -.27**(.108)

.28 -.33**(.13)

.27 .-25(.20)

.23 68

Highly-distorted economiesOverhead costs -0.02

(0.06).19 0.06**

(0.024).28 0.03

(0.06).27 160

NetIntMargin 0.32***(0.09)

.21 0.35***(0.06)

.32 0.28**(.12)

.29 162

Source: World Bank Financial Structure Dataset (2012), WB WDI 2012 edition; UNIDO . Note: *,**,*** denote significance on the 10, 5 and 1-percent level, respectively. Bootstrapped standard errors, clustered by country year reported in parentheses. The regression controls for the level of economic development proxied by ln of GDP pc at const 2000 US dollars. For reproducibility of the results we run 2000 replications with seed set at 1001.

Growth, TCI and Financial Structure Gap

• Larger deviations in actual financial structure from its optimal one further reinforce a negative effect of TCI on growth.

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Growth, TCI and Financial Structure Gap

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Explanatory variables Coefficient

Ln_gdp_pc_start -0.014**(0.06)

Ln TCI -0.019**(0.009)

FinStr gap -0.001(0.004)

Ln TCI_x_FinStr_gap -0.005**(0.002)

Landlocked 0.003(0.006)

Legal origin UK -0.016(0.010)

Ln Population Size 0.007*(0.002)

Natural Resources Exports 0.0001(0.0001)

Private Credit to GDP 0.008(0.007)

Number obs. 171F st. 14.68

Pr>z AR(1) / Pr>z AR(2) 00.016/0.666

Hansen test of overid. restrictions, Chi2

(Pr.>chi2).294

Note: SYS GMM regression resultsDependent variable: growth averaged over 5-year non-overlapping periods of time.

Conclusions I• Our analysis confirms the negative relationship

between TCI and growth found by Lin (2012). • These results also hold for the group of highly

distorted economies.• However, we find that the NSE propositions cannot

be generalized to the overall group of transition economies for which the relationship is positive.

• This positive relationship is due to two different sub-groups. For CEE, the relationship between TCI2 and growth is positive while for the FSU is negative.

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Conclusions II

• We also confirm that the positive relationship between larger financial sector distortions and Technology Choice Index, although this relationship is not homogeneous, and it differs across different groups of countries depending on the aspect of financial structure or financial sector distortions we look at (size vs. efficiency)

• While controlling for potential endogeneity between economic growth, TCI and financial sector distortions our study also reveals that the negative effect of TCI on growth is further reinforced by larger deviation in the actual financial structure from its estimated optimal level.

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Discussion I

• The Technology Choice index is very important element of the development strategy of a country

• Also the Financial sector Distortion (size and/or efficiency) is a key ingredient for a sustainable development strategy.

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Discussion II

• We discussed the relevance/adequacy of TCI as an indicator of CAD/CAF strategy and/or distortion.

• In fact, the relationship between TCI/FinDist and growth seems to be characterised by:

1. Non-monotonicity

2. Groups’ specific effects (CEE, FSU, HDD)We are developing our research in this direction by constructing a simultaneous estimation of the

TCI=f(FinDist)

Growth=f(TCI) =>

Growth=f(TCI(FinDist))

We are aware of important challenges for endogeneity and selection. 27

THANK YOU

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