CIRJE-F-368 | "Technology Adoption, Learning by Doing, and Productivity:A Study of Steel Refining Furnaces" |
Author Name | Nakamura, Tsuyoshi and Hiroshi Ohashi |
Date | September 2005 |
Full Paper | PDF file@ |
Remarks | Subsequently publshed in Journal of Industrial Economics, 2008. |
Abstract |
Models of vintage-capital learning by doing predict an initial fall in productivity after
the introduction of new technology. This paper examines the impact of new technology
on plant-level productivity in the Japanese steel industry in the 1950s and 1960s. The
introduction of the basic oxygen furnace was the greatest breakthrough in the steel
refining process in the last century. We estimate production function, taking account of
the differences in technology between the refining furnaces owned by a plant. Estimation
results indicate that a more productive plant was likely to adopt the new technology,
and that the adoption would be timed to occur right after the peak of the productivity
level achieved with the old technology. We have found that the adoption of the new
technology primarily accounted not only for the industry's productivity slowdown in
the early 1960s, but also for the industry's remarkable growth in the post-war period.
These results are robust to endogeneity in the choice of input and technology. |