An international comparison of the TFP levels and the productivity convergence of Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and Chinese listed firms

Focusing on Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Chinese firms in the manufacturing sector, this paper examines productivity catch-up at the firm level using the distance from the technology frontier as a direct measure of the potential for catch-up. We also examine the role of absorptive capacity for technological catch-up by including variables such as R&D expenditure and foreign ownership in our empirical estimation. We find that the national frontier has a stronger pull on domestic firms than the regional frontier, which is in line with findings by Bartelsman, Haskel, and Martin (2008). This result indicates that policies to raise the technology level of national frontier firms are beneficial for all firms in that country.