Estimation of Embodied Technological Progress in Korean Manufacturing

This paper empirically investigates the rates of embodied technological change and their relative contributions to total factor productivity growth for manufacturing, using the Korean plant-level manufacturing data for the period of 1985-2003. We adopt a production-based estimation method proposed by Sakellaris and Wilson (2004) in order to examine the marginal productivity increase of each vintage of equipment over time. We find that the rate of embodied technological progress of Korea’s manufacturing sector maintains the annual average level of 13.7 percent from 1985 to 2003, slightly lower than 16.9 percent of the U.S., estimated by Sakellaris & Wilson (2004). While the rate recorded a remarkable increase after the 1997 financial crisis, IT-producing and IT-using industries achieved higher rates of embodied technological progress than non-IT counterparts