Abstract

GONZALEZ, GERMAN HECTOR  and  DELBIANCO, FERNANDO ANDRES. OPENNESS AND TOTAL FACTOR PRODUCTIVITY: TEST OF TEMPORAL COINCIDENCE OF THE STRUCTURAL BREAKS FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN. RAE [online]. 2011, vol.26, n.1, pp. 53-81. ISSN 0718-8870.  doi: 10.4067/S0718-88702011000100003.

We study the existence of a structural break in TFP and in several indicators of openness for a sample of 20 Latin American and Caribbean economies for the period 1960-2005. For this purpose, the tests of Zivot and Andrews (1992) and Bai and Perron (1998) on a series of TFP computed from a development accounting exercise (Hsieh and Klenow, 2010) and alternative measures of openness with different characters (Wacziarg, 2001) have been used. The cases of breaks on TFP during the consolidation process of openness in the region (1985-1995) are not significant. Shocks in openness seem to have effects on the rate of growth of TFP.

Keywords : Openness; Total Factor Productivity; Latin America and the Caribbean.