解析無形資本累積與東亞農業成長之關連

Accumulation of Intangible Capital as a Growth Determinant: The Evidence from East-Asian Agricultural Production

本研究嘗試透過多國的農業生產力分析，檢視農業技術研發與人力資源兩類無形資本累積與東亞地區各國農業成長的關聯。結果顯示，農業部門累積的研發資本是解釋各國技術變動在速度差異上的主要因素，內生成長模型強調的人力資本則必須透過其對研發的影響方才能解釋部份的差異，而在東亞大多數國家，人力資本對農業生產效率的改善有著顯著之正向影響，其影響效果以馬來西亞為最大，台灣次之。在本文實證模型的設定下，可進一步檢視兩類無形資本之間的關係，結果發現除了日本以外，人力資本以及研發資本對總要素生產力成長與技術變動的影響，均呈現互補的效果。我們亦嘗試以Färe et al. (1994) 的三項基準假設找出帶動最佳生產邊界變動的「革新者」，在固定規模報酬的基準下，實證結果顯示台灣與日本在四個研究期間均展現其強大的農業生產潛力，因而扮演著技術領先者的角色，由於這兩個國家亦一直是八國中農業研發支出最高者，這個結果充分顯現農業技術研發在農業部門發展過程中的重要性。

Emphasizing the important role of R&D and education on agriculturalproduction, this paper delineated the association of two intangiblecapitals with the growth of agricultural sectors in eight East Asiancountries. Our empirical results suggest that while R&D stock is the majordeterminant for the sample countries’ advancement in technology, humancapital exhibits a statistically positive impact on the efficiencyimprovement. The efficiency improvement effect of human capital is thegreatest for Malaysia, with Taiwan the second, among the eight countries.A further scrutiny of the relationship between the two intangible capitalsindicates a complementary relationship between R&D stock and humancapital, except for Japan. Under the constant-return-to-scale benchmark,the criteria suggested in Färe et al. (1994) were used to identify theinnovators or technology leaders shifting the production frontier. Taiwanand Japan were found to be the major innovators during the sampleperiod. Because these two countries had the highest percentage inR&D spending among the sample countries, this result further signifiesthe importance of R&D in the process of agricultural development.