Technological Change and Demand for Skills in Developing Countries: An Empirical Investigation of the Republic of Korea's Case

Abstract

There are few studies that directly address the upskilling issues in developing countries. Since theoretical analyses of these issues usually yield different results, upskilling in developing counties, and the factors of upskilling, if any, are rather empirical questions. This study shows that upskilling that occurs in developed countries in terms of the ratio of the number of white-collar workers to that of blue-collar workers also occurred in the Republic of Korea, one of developing countries. Increasing demand for highly-skilled workers reflected in their employment and wage shares can be largely explained by "within industry" shifts, not by "between industry" shifts, especially in the manufacturing industry. To further investigate the causes of these shifts, changes in white-collar shares are regressed on the capital-output and R&D-sales ratio. Estimated coefficients are all positive, suggesting capital-skill complementarities and skill-biased technological change.

Occupational structures across 25 EU countries: the importance of industry structure and technology in old and new EU countries

“…The cross-country average share of the within effect in the total change is 71% (in EU15 71% and in NMS10 72%, the six countries with a negative within effect are excluded). This is consistent with most of the literature on skill-biased technological change; see for instance Berman et al (1998) for developed countries, and Berman et al (2000) and Kang (2002) for developing countries. For example, Berman et al (1998) estimated the within effect of the change in the share of nonproduction workers to be 84% in the 1970s, and 92% in the 1980s in selected OECD countries.…”

Imported Skill-Biased Technological Change in Developing Countries

“…7 7 Some examples are Robbins and Gindling (1999) for Costa Rica; Feliciano (2001) for Mexico; Kang and Hong (2002) for South Korea; Attanasio, Goldberg, and Pavcnik (2004) for Colombia; Berman, Somanathan, and Tan (2005) for India. …”

Globalization and Employment: Imported Skill Biased Technological Change in Developing Countries

“…While trade and SBTC predict a similar e¤ect on relative employment in HICs 10 , available empirical evidence in LMICs underlines a rising wage inequality which is at odds with the S-S theorem while consistent with the occurrence of SBTC (Cragg and Epelbaum, 1996;Feenstra and Hanson 1996a, 1996bBerman et al, 1998;Beyer et al, 1999;Hanson and Harrison, 1999;Feliciano, 2001;Kang and Hong, 2002;Pavcnik, 2003).…”

“…1 9 Some examples are the study of Robbins and Gindling (1999) for Costa Rica; Feliciano (2001) and Lopez-Acevedo (2002) for Mexico; Görg and Strobl (2002) for Ghana; Kang and Hong (2002) for Southern Korea; Mazumdar and Quispe-Agnoli (2002) for Perú; Attanasio et al (2004) for Colombia; Berman et al (2005) for India. 9 in fact, any empirical veri…cation of a theoretical framework of technology transfer (i.e.…”