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AbstractWe explore the sources of economic growth in Sri Lanka for the period during which it implemented a liberalized trade policy. We first calculate the primal and dual total factor productivity growth (TFPG), and then evaluate the roles of FDI and exports in driving TFPG. Results show that the average annual primal TFPG for 1980–2019 is 2.1%, constituting 43% of output growth. The corresponding dual TFPG is 3.3%. This divergence between primal and dual calculations is due to market imperfections, regulations, government monopolies, and issues in national accounts compilations. Regression results show that FDI has been a significant driver of Sri Lanka’s TFPG. Moreover, we find that both factor accumulation and TFPG are important sources of output growth. This is the first study that calculates dual TFPG for Sri Lanka. It provides policymakers the direction for implementing targeted policies to enhance Sri Lanka’s long-term growth prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Byline: Zheng Zhang, Yuping Deng, Sam Hak Kan Tang Abstract By merging China's manufacturing enterprise, patent and customs databases, we construct a sample of 27,130 firms from 2002-2007. Using Poisson fixed-effects regressions to control for firm and year heterogeneities and a host of control variables, we find that acquired firms of foreign mergers and acquisitions (FMA) apply for significantly more patents than their domestic counterparts in invention, utility model and design patents. Furthermore, FMA increases innovation through expanding firm size, exports and human capital formation. Wholly foreign-owned firms are more innovative than partially foreign-owned firms, and acquired firms in labour-intensive industries are more innovative than those in capital-intensive industries. Article Note: Zhang: School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, People's Republic of China; Deng: School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, People's Republic of China; Tang: Business School, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia. Corresponding author: Deng, email < yuping.deng@uwa.edu.au. Zhang and Deng are grateful for the financial support of the National Natural Science Fund Project of China (grant number 71703035) and the National Social Science Fund Project of China (grant number 16ZA038).

This paper studies the effects of live-in foreign domestic workers (FDWs) on school children's educational outcomes using samples from two population censuses and a survey data set. The evidence consistently points to Filipino FDWs improving the educational outcomes of school children by decreasing their probability of late schooling or increasing their scores of core academic subjects. English-speaking ability and maturity are shown to be the most important assets of the Filipino FDW in improving children's educational outcomes. These findings suggest that FDWs provide an important childrearing service.

Byline: Sam Hak Kan Tang Keywords: economic development; output volatility; scientific and technical publications; O11; O33; E32 ABSTRACT This paper explores whether conducting scientific and technical (S&T) research reduces the volatility of output growth. The paper finds robust evidence that output volatility is significantly lowered by a country's production of S&T publications. The results show that the effect of S&T publications on output volatility is particularly strong in middle-income, OECD and other high-income countries. However, for East-Asian, low-income and sub-Saharan African countries the effect is either weak or absent. These results provide strong evidence that not only OECD and other high-income countries are actively engaged in S&T research, emerging developing countries are also conducting S&T research, which is effective in reducing output volatility. The results are robust to adding a host of control variables, various subsamples and different estimation techniques.

Byline: Sam Hak Kan Tang, Charles Ka Yui Leung We present cross-country evidence that a country's macroeconomic volatility, measured either by the standard deviation of output growth or the occurrence of trend-growth breaks, is significantly affected by the country's historical variables. In particular, countries with longer histories of state-level political institutions experience less macroeconomic volatility in post-war periods. Robustness checks reveal that the effect of this historical variable on volatility remains significant and substantial after controlling for a host of structural variables investigated in previous studies. We also find that the state history variable is more important in countries with a higher level of macroeconomic volatility. Article Note: We are grateful for the insightful comments provided by two anonymous referees. We would like to thank Harry Bloch, who provided invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Constructive comments from Sumru Altug, Josef Brada, Cem Cakmakli, Stanley Engerman, Inci Gumus, Keiya Minamimura, Tomomi Miyazaki, Tim Riddiough, Masahiko Shibamoto, and seminar participants at Kobe University, the University of Western Australia, Koc Macroeconomic Workshop and World Congress of Comparative Economics in Rome are also acknowledged. We thank the University of Western Australia and the City University of Hong Kong for their financial support. The work described in this paper was partially supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (project no. CityU 146112). All remaining errors are our own.

Byline: Sam Hak Kan Tang Abstract This article studies the relationship between research and development intensity and growth performance during economic downturns at the industry level. Industries that are more research and development-intensive tend to perform better during downturns than industries that are less research and development-intensive. The panel fixed-effects estimations show that this link is particularly strong among manufacturing industries and is robust to various sensitivity checks. These results are consistent with previous firm-level studies that find innovating firms are much less sensitive to a particular cyclical shock than are non-innovating firms. Article Note: Business School, The University of Western Australia, Western Australia 6009 Australia; email sam.tang@uwa.edu.au. I am grateful to two anonymous referees and Paul Jensen for insightful comments. Thanks are also due to Harry Bloch, Nic Groenewold and Andrew Williams for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this article. Any remaining errors are my own.

Recent literature has been debating the performance of high-technology zones (HTZs) in developing countries. This paper contributes to this debate by examining how national HTZs in China affect allocative efficiency of resources among Chinese cities as well as China's total factor productivity (TFP) growth. This paper finds that resource misallocation among cities reduces China's TFP growth by 4.5% of which capital misallocation accounts for 2.4% and labour misallocation accounts for 2.1%. Moreover, we find that the establishment of national HTZs in China increases aggregate TFP by improving the allocative efficiency of capital among cities: that is, redistributing more capital from lower to higher productivity cities. In contrast, we find little evidence of TFP gain driven by technical efficiency following the establishment of HTZs. This paper thus reveals a potential positive effect of establishing HTZs in developing countries: although establishing HTZs may not improve the technical efficiency of these countries, it may nevertheless mitigate these countries' resource misallocation and enhance their aggregate TFP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the rule of law and democratic accountability have affected Hong Kong's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate in the past 20 yr. We find that democratic accountability has deteriorated substantially since the changeover of sovereignty in 1997, while the rule of law has remained strong and stable. Empirical results from autoregressive distributed lag bounds tests show a positive long-run relationship between growth and democratic accountability, and Granger causality tests reveal that democratic accountability causes the growth rate of GDP in the short run. These conclusions are robust to control for the effects of investment and the Asian financial crisis in 1997. (JEL O18, O49, P17), I. INTRODUCTION Hong Kong became a Special Administrative Region (SAR) after its sovereignty reverted to Chinain July 1997. Since then, the Basic Law, which is the SAR's mini-constitution, has functioned [...]

This paper explores the effects of different language home environments provided by English‐speaking and non‐English‐speaking migrant domestic workers (MDW) on Hong Kong children's ability to speak English. Results show that English‐speaking MDW in working‐mother households increase children's likelihood of speaking English by 12% if the mother in the household does not speak English but by 25% if the mother in the household is capable of speaking English. Non‐English‐speaking MDW, however, are found to have little such effects. Age and education are two qualities of English‐speaking MDW that are significantly associated with improvements in children's English‐speaking ability and their English school subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effects of live-in foreign domestic workers (FDWs) on school children's educational outcomes using samples from two population censuses and a survey data set. The evidence consistently points to Filipino FDWs improving the educational outcomes of school children by decreasing their probability of late schooling or increasing their scores of core academic subjects. English-speaking ability and maturity are shown to be the most important assets of the Filipino FDW in improving children's educational outcomes. These findings suggest that FDWs provide an important childrearing service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]