Comparative examination of macro-level determinants of total factor productivity in the context of technology diffusion: The case of emerging markets

This study investigates the effects of total patents, selected components of imports, foreign direct investment inflows and tertiary education on total factor productivity, which by many seen as the proxy for technology diffusion. The analysis is done for the selected developing countries of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Greece, South Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Spain and Turkey for the time period of 1970-2014 using annual data and ARDL method. The findings from ARDL tests show that selected components of imports was the most significant determinant of the total factor productivity across selected countries both for the short-run and the long-run, where other explanatory variables were not able to produce such common significant effects. Despite, total patents series were able to produce significant positive effects for all the countries, either for the short run or the long run. Foreign direct investment series were able to create significant positive effects on the total factor productivity for only small group of countries. Similarly, the series for tertiary education were able to create significant positive effects only in Mexico, Portugal and Turkey for the short run and Brazil for the long run.