Analyzing Productivity Growth: Evidence from China’s Manufacturing Industries

This article examines the growth attributes of manufacturing industries in China for the sample period of 1999-2007. All manufacturing industries are grouped into and four main industry groups and four geographical regions. A revised Solow’s growth method is used to decompose the growth attributes into input growth, scale effect, technical progress, and technical efficiency change. A stochastic frontier model is applied to the translog production function. The empirical findings show a strong presence of technical progress, while labor input has rapidly been replaced by human capital. Structural transformation in the industrial sector is evident, so as regional imbalances.