The Effects of R&D and High Technology Exports on Economic Growth: A Comparative Cointegration Analysis for Turkey and South Korea

Abstract

The importance of technology and research and development (R&D) on economic development through international trade has been discussed in many studies. However, the empirical studies focusing on the role of high technology exports has been limited. The study aims at filling this gap by evaluating the relationship between high technology exports and GDP per capita levels with structural unit root tests and cointegration methodologies for Turkey and South Korea for the 1989-2014 period. The following hypothesis is evaluated: by increasing high technology manufactured goods’ exports, countries could increase their GDP per capita which also requires increased R&D that translates itself as high technology manufactured exports. The empirical methodology is as follows: both GDP per capita and high-tech exports variables are tested with traditional ADF, PP unit root and KPSS stationarity tests. The series are further evaluated with Zivot-Andrews single break and Lee-Strazicich two break unit root tests. The structural break tests are necessary; it is well-known that structural breaks lead to biased results in the traditional unit root and additionally in the cointegration tests. Lastly, both variables are tested for cointegration with Engle-Granger and Johansen tests by incorporating the break dates as exogenous dummy variables. The estimated models are further checked for parameter instability with CUSUM type tests. The results obtained for Turkey and South Korea are slightly different: i. both variables are cointegrated for both countries; ii. For South Korea, the positive impact of high-tech exports on GDP cannot be rejected in the long and short run; ii. This conclusion cannot be obtained for Turkey, iii. the parameter estimates for Turkey hint a limited positive effect of high tech exports in the short-run only. The results suggest that, in the future, Turkey should increase the investments in human capital and R&D directed to high tech exports to which could accelerate the economic growth.