TECHNOLOGY DIFFUSION TOWARDS EMERGING MARKETS: A COMPARATIVE PANEL DATA ANALYSIS

Abstract

This study aims to reveal how absorbable foreign direct investment (FDI) and macroeconomic performance affect technology diffusion along with patent applications, imports and human capital in 14 selected emerging markets (EMs) between 1980-2017. To do this, a new approach for indexing macroeconomic performance is suggested and a strongly balanced panel was investigated with two different econometric approaches. Key findings are as follows: (i) suggested macroeconomic performance index performs well under pooled mean group and dynamic common correlated effects estimations and proves the importance of macroeconomic outlook for developing countries, (ii) the positive effect of human capital on total factor productivity turns to negative when common factors are included in the estimation, meaning that international technology spillovers are a key source of productivity increases for developing countries.