We study the growth effects of outward oriented economies by using stochastic frontier analysis to measure the efficiency externalities of three forms of economic cross-border activities – international trade, FDI and migration – for OECD countries. The study also examines whether the efficiency of these cross border activities is affected by the level of human capital in the host country. We find that international trade and FDI are important channels for improving efficiency, as is human capital accumulation, and that the positive effects of international trade, FDI, and migration depend crucially on the level of accumulated human capital. Our results show that the impact of human capital is important for increasing efficiency via international trade flows and FDI flows, while immigration into countries that are richer in human capital enhances their efficiency relatively more than immigration into countries with lower human capital. These results remain robust to alternate measures of human capital, controls on education levels among immigrants, and to a nonparametric estimation of the model.

We use an appropriate nonparametric two-step approach on conditional efficiencies to investigate how foreign direct investment (FDI) and time affect the process of catching up. By using a dataset of 44 countries over 1970–2007, we explore the channels under which FDI fosters productivity by disentangling the impact of this factor on the production process and its components: impact on the attainable production set (input–output space) and the impact on the distribution of efficiencies. We extend existing methodological tools—conditional non- parametric efficiency measures—to examine these interrelationships. We emphasize the usefulness of smoothing over time to better analyze the potential dynamic influence of FDI on efficiency. We find that both FDI and time play an important role as influencing efficiency distribution and affecting, to a smaller extend, the production set. This effect of FDI does not seem to vary much over time. By the second-stage nonparametric regression of the conditional efficiencies over FDI and time we identify clearly the effect of time and FDI on conditional effi- ciency and we determine idiosyncratic efficiency, which represents the‘Solow residual’, measured by looking to the unexplained part of the conditional efficiencies.

We employ a two-step approach in investigating the dynamic transmission channels under which globalization factors foster technical efficiency by combining a dynamic efficiency analysis in the stochastic frontier framework, and a time series approach based on VAR and spectral analysis. Using the dataset of the 18 EU countries over 1970–2004, we find that both import and FDI are significant factors in spreading efficiency externalities and thus accelerating technology catch-up in the EU. In particular, the impacts of the import are more prominent in the short-run while those of FDI play a more important role over the longer-run. Furthermore, the impacts of the import are pro-cyclical only in the short-run whereas those of FDI are pro-cyclical mostly over the medium- to the long-run. This evidence is broadly consistent with the sample observation that the recent slowdown of the EU productivity has been closely related to the corresponding FDI decline especially after 2000. Hence, any protection-oriented policy will be likely to be more detrimental for the EU.

In an earlier paper the authors proposed a two-step approach to examine dynamic transmission mechanism under which globalization factors foster technology efficiency. In this paper the MSS model is extended by combining a panel threshold regression technique. This threshold stochastic frontier panel data model enables the analysis of regime-specific stochastic frontiers and complex time-varying patterns of technical efficiencies in a robust manner. Using a dataset of 44 countries over 1970–2007, income elasticities of labor and capital and time-varying common efficiencies are found to be substantially different under superior and inferior frontiers. Capital and labor inputs are more productive under superior frontier. More importantly, common efficiencies have steadily increased under superior frontier, but technical efficiency has monotonic- ally decreased for low income countries, supporting the so-called club convergence hypothesis. Furthermore, the VAR-based impulse response analyses suggest that openness factors through FDI and trade help the countries to improve production technology and efficiency position relative to the frontier only after the country has reached a certain level of development.

We investigate the determinants of TFP growth of Italian manufacturing firms. Using stochastic frontier techniques, we consider three approaches for taking into account the influence of external factors, i.e., the determinants or drivers of growth. First, in our novel approach external factors may influence the technological progress, that is the shift of the frontier. To model this possible unexplored effect, we extend the standard time trend model to make it a function of the external factors. Then, following more standard approaches, we model external factors as either influencing the distance from the frontier, i.e., inefficiency, or the shape of the technology. Using a sample of manufacturing firms in 1998–2003, we find that technological investments and spillovers, human capital and regional banking inefficiency all have a significant effect on TFP growth.