Learning and Productivity Performance in Arab Manufacturing Industries

International audience Enhancing workforce productivity in manufacturing industries requires a broad range of technological capabilities which can be acquired only by a long and costly process of learning. For most developing countries, the key to technological change is technological catch-up through learning, which means acquisition, diffusion and upgrading of technologies that already exist in more technologically advanced countries, than undertaking R&D to push the global knowledge frontier further. Continuous measuring of an ever-changing technological learning is then crucial for building technological capability and managing industrial policies in these countries. The key contribution of this paper is to provide direct estimates of learning effect using a panel of annual data and three-digit level International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) manufacturing industries for five Arab countries (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Oman and Tunisia) and two reference countries (Korea and Turkey).