خلاصة:
Domestic innovations and technology imports play important roles in boosting relative demand for skilled labor force. These factors are in turn influenced by domestic R&D investments and international trade. Using a translog cost function, this paper studies the effect of technology imports and other factors including output level and physical capital stock on the shares of skilled labor force employment. The data for technology imports are gathered based on ISIC (International Standard Industry Classification) 2-digit codes for the period 1971-2013. Our translog cost function is estimated by seemingly unrelated regressions (SUR) method. The estimation results show that an increase in technology imports raises the share of skilled labor force and decreases the production cost. Moreover, our result indicates that domestic R&D has no effect on employment level of skilled labor force in Iran.
ملخص الجهاز:
Using a translog cost function, this paper studies the effect of technology imports and other factors including output level and physical capital stock on the shares of skilled labor force employment.
Keywords: Cost function, Technology imports, Demand for skilled labor force, Research and development (R&D), Iran JEL Classification: F16, 015, 033.
L L WH WH This analysis indicates that share of wages paid by a firm to skilled labor force increases as the demand for skilled workers increases: W WH H H H (1) WL L WH H W L L W H H It should be noticed that demand shift to skilled labor force is the result of domestic technological changes and globalization phenomenon being the causes of introducing the technology to developing countries (Sasaki & Sakura, 2005).
Findings of his study indicated that index of technology imports to value – added ratio influenced levels of specialists’ employment while R&D costs to value – added ratio increased demand for skilled labor force only in industry sector and was insignificant at macro level.
Because all reviewed studies performed in relation to the demand for skilled labor force have used translog cost function successfully, including channels and Van Reenen (1992); Hollanders – Weel (2002); Sasaki and Sakura (2005); Fuentes and Gilchrist (2005); Schöller (2007); Conte and Vivarelli (2007); Meschi and Taymaz (2009); Yu Mei – Ci (2010); Senses (2010); and Srivastava – Mathur (2011).
In present study, the effects of domestic R&D and technology imports on skilled labor force demand are evaluated in Iran by estimating a translog cost function.