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Reflecting Change: The Second Edition of ‘From Poverty to Power’
Duncan Green Updating a book on contemporary events can be unnerving. In the intervening years, events and new thinking combine to expose the...
123 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Working Paper
New technologies create opportunitiesThis paper argues that new technologies—for communication, such as mobile phones and the internet, but also for manufacturing, agriculture, energy, and transport—have the potential to bridge many of the productivity gaps between sub-Saharan Africa...
Working Paper
Learning to Export and Learning by Exporting
– The Case of Ethiopian Manufacturing
In this study, we investigate the relationship between exporting and firm performance using a longer panel dataset of Ethiopian manufacturing firms for the period 1996−2009. We test two hypotheses regarding exporting: selection into exporting versus...
Working Paper
Behavioral Design
– A New Approach to Development Policy
Successful development programs rely on people to behave and choose in certain ways, and behavioral economics helps us understand why people behave and choose as they do. Approaching problems in development using behavioral economics thus leads to...
Report
Firm-level Competitiveness and Technology in Vietnam :
– Evidence From a Survey in 2012
This report summarizes information from the 2012 round of the Vietnam Technology and Competitiveness Survey (TCS), collaboratively developed by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), the General Statistics Office (GSO), and the...
Report
Firm-level Competitiveness and Technology in Vietnam (in Vietnamese) :
– Evidence From a Survey in 2012
This report summarizes information from the 2012 round of the Vietnam Technology and Competitiveness Survey (TCS), collaboratively developed by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), the General Statistics Office (GSO), and the...
Working Paper
Planning for Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power in South Africa
– Identifying Cost-Effective Deployment Strategies Through Spatiotemporal Modelling
South Africa hopes to expand wind and solar power. Success depends on how and where to deploy the technologies. This study develops a 10-year database of expected power generation for these technologies across South Africa. A power system model...
Working Paper
Indo-Sri Lanka Economic Cooperation
– An Operational Programme
The emerging trends in global trading patterns point to the increasing role and significance of regional economic cooperation in promoting the process of growth and development. The formation of the South-Asian Association for Regional Cooperation...
Report
Firm-Level Competitiveness and Technology in Vietnam :
– Evidence From a Survey in 2010
This report is based on a survey module incorporated into the 2009 Vietnam Enterprise Survey conducted by the General Statistics Office (GSO) of Vietnam in 2010.1. The survey module was specifically designed by the Development Economics Research...
Working Paper
Globalization, Technology Transfer, and Skill Accumulation in Low-Income CountriesGlobalization has drastically improved access of technological latecomers to advanced technologies and provides a unique opportunity for low-income countries to raise per capita income. This paper shows that low-income countries as a group have in...
Working Paper
Financing the New Economy
– Financial Institutions and Corporate Governance
This paper examines the financial sector preconditions for the successful development of a high technology sector. It argues that there is a close relation between types of activities undertaken in different countries and their institutional...
Working Paper
Measuring Industry Agglomeration and Identifying the Driving ForcesUnderstanding industry agglomeration and its driving forces is critical for the formulation of industrial policy in developing countries. Crucial to this process is the definition and measurement of agglomeration. We propose a new measure and examine...
Journal Article
Productivity Growth, Efficiency and Outsourcing in Manufacturing and Service IndustriesThis paper is a survey of recent contributions to, and developments of, the relationship between outsourcing, efficiency and productivity growth in manufacturing and services. The objective is to provide a thorough and up–to–date survey that provides...
Journal Article
Productivity measurement in Swedish departments of gynecology and obstetricsThe rapid growth of public spending and the need to assess its impact on the welfare system has made the studies of productivity in the public sector an important subject. This paper is concerned with the specification and estimation of total factor...
Research Brief
An Assessment of a Village Development Programme in MozambiqueThe programme did lead participating households to use improved seeds. Food consumption scores did not improve after the programme. However during the programme participating households moved to more sustainable strategies to cope with food shortages...
Journal Article
Behavioral Design
– A New Approach to Development Policy
Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics
Journal Article
Brazil’s Growth Performance
– A Comparative Perspective to the Asian Giants
Part of Journal Special Issue Southern Growth Engines and Technology Giants
Book Chapter
Decomposing Growth
– Do Low-income and HIPC Countries Differ from High-income Countries?
Part of Book Advancing Development
Book Chapter
Gender Differentiation in the Analysis of Alternative Farm Mechanization Choices on Small Farms in KenyaPart of Book Food Insecurity, Vulnerability and Human Rights Failure
Book Chapter
Globalization, Technology and Income Inequality
– A Critical Analysis
Part of Book Inequality, Growth and Poverty in an Era of Liberalization and Globalization
Blog
Economic Lessons from Recent Research for Achieving SDG8
This article is part of UNU’s “17 Days, 17 Goals” series, featuring research and commentary in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development...
Blog
From the Editor's Desk (September-October 2015)
UNU-WIDER had a busy September. We celebrated our 30th birthday with some 600 people at our three-day conference on ‘Mapping the Future of Development...
Book Chapter
Does Lack of Innovation and Absorptive Capacity Retard Economic Growth in Africa?This paper reviews the innovative capabilities and absorptive capacities of African countries, and investigates whether they have played significant roles in the region’s slow and episodic economic growth. Results from cross-country regressions...
Working Paper
Comparing the development of agricultural technology and information technology in rural VietnamThis paper presents a descriptive analysis on the ownership of different types of technology—both agricultural machinery and information technology—within households in rural areas of Vietnam. We find that there has been little development in the...
Book Chapter
Selective Policies for Export Promotion
– Lessons from the Asian Tigers
Part of Book Non-Traditional Export Promotion in Africa
Book Chapter
Innovations, High-Tech Trade and Industrial Development
– Theory, Evidence and Policy
Part of Book Advancing Development
Journal Article
Financing the New Economy
– Financial Institutions and Corporate Governance
Part of Journal Special Issue The New Economy
Book Chapter
The Weightless Economy in Economic DevelopmentPart of Book Information Technology, Productivity, and Economic Growth
Book Chapter
Credit Constraints as a Barrier to Technology Adoption by the Poor
– Lessons from South Indian Small Scale Fishery
Part of Book Globalization and the Poor in Asia
Working Paper
Smart classrooms and education outcomes
– Evidence from Rwanda
In this study, we explore the impact of a smart classroom (SCM) programme on student performance in science subjects in a high-stakes national exam for middle-high school students in Rwanda. To do this, we leverage plausibly exogenous variations in...
Book Chapter
Implications for making the achievements sustainablePart of Book Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Working Paper
Diffusion of agricultural innovations in Guinea-Bissau
– From learning to doing
This paper analyses the pathways of technology diffusion through social networks, following the experimental introduction of new technologies in Guinea-Bissau. In the context of an agricultural extension project, we document both the direct effects...
Working Paper
What drives parental investments in early childhood?
– Experimental evidence from a video intervention in Rwanda
This paper investigates the causal impact of a randomized video intervention designed to study the determinants of parental time investments in early childhood among low-income parents. We designed and screened a video that provided information and...
Working Paper
Making agricultural value chains more inclusive through technology and innovationSome entry barriers in agricultural and agro-processing value chains, particularly for smallholder farmers and small/medium-sized processors, can be overcome with innovation and technology adoption. Technologies and innovation in these sectors have...
Working Paper
Domestic revenue mobilization and informality
– Challenges and opportunities for sub-Saharan Africa
Effective domestic revenue mobilization has gained renewed urgency, especially in the light of the need to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. In taxation debates, the ‘informal sectors’ have hitherto been assumed to be a part of the problem and...
Working Paper
Looking ahead to COP27—from climate pledges to action
– The Global Methane Pledge—opportunities and risks
The global energy transition is happening, but too slowly to limit climate change to acceptable levels, for diverse reasons. Carbon emissions policies and measures focus too little on absolute emission targets and too much on relative measures such...
Working Paper
Fintech in sub-Saharan AfricaThis paper traces the development of fintech in sub-Saharan Africa, its evolution over time, and the unfolding benefits attained at each stage of its adoption and market evolution. From the onset, fintechs have revolutionized retail electronic...
Working Paper
Digital de-industrialization, global value chains, and structural transformation
– Empirical evidence from low- and middle-income countries
Digitalization and shifting patterns of globalization are fast changing the rules of the game for countries embarking on a path of industrialization. In this study, we empirically examine the impact of digitalization and global value chains on...
Blog
Fintech and domestic savings: A perfect match coming true in sub-Saharan Africa
Financial technology (FinTech) is a major force disrupting the structure of financial services in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and enabling access of...
Working Paper
India’s development cooperation in Africa
– The case of ‘Solar Mamas’ who bring light
This paper examines multiple facets of New Delhi’s development cooperation with countries in Africa and argues that grassroots organizations in India that find innovative, low-cost technological solutions to developmental challenges can help...
Blog
Technology and supermarket chains can help strengthen southern Africa’s food systemsAgriculture and agro-processing value chains have been under pressure during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been particularly marked where they...
Blog
Late development, early adoption – how new technology is reshaping the future of structural change
Technological catch-up is bringing new asynchronies to development pathways. What does this mean for employment, globalization, and inequality? A...
Working Paper
Technology and clientelist politics in IndiaThis paper argues that new computer, smartphone, and universal ID technologies are reducing the incentives for political clientelism in the delivery of social programmes in India, especially by allowing party leaders to bypass local brokers to credit...
Working Paper
Sources of output growth in the countries of the Common Monetary Area and provinces of South AfricaThis paper aims to decompose the sources of growth in economies in the Southern African region’s Common Monetary Area and in the provinces of South Africa. Decomposition results for the Common Monetary Area reveal that the growth of aggregate and...
Journal Article
Digital Technologies and Product Upgrading in Global Value Chains
– Empirical Evidence from Indian Manufacturing Firms
This article provides empirical evidence on the impact of digitalisation on product upgrading in global value chains (GVCs). Analysis is done for a sample of Indian manufacturing GVC firms in the period 2001–15 from the firm-level database Prowess...
Working Paper
International and Intra-national Technology Spillovers and Technology Development Paths in Developing Countries
– The Case of China
This paper analyses the paths of technology development among regions with heterogeneous economic and technological characteristics, focusing on the case of China. It finds that intra-national technology transfer, that is, the technology transfer...
Working Paper
Economic Proximity and Technology Flows
– South Africa’s Influence and the Role of Technological Interaction in Botswana’s Diversification Effort
In less than a decade after the end of the apartheid, South Africa has intensified its economic ties with its African neighbours to become one of the top-ten investors and trading partners of many African countries, displacing companies from the...
Working Paper
Economic Efficiency and Growth
– Evidence from Brazil, China, and India
We compare economic efficiencies in Brazil, India, and China, where economic efficiency measures the gap between potential and actual output for a given input combination and technological factor. We use stochastic production frontier models to...
Working Paper
Impact of Technology on the Competitiveness of the Indian Small Manufacturing Sector
– A Case Study of the Automotive Component Industry
This paper endeavours to study the impact of technology on the competitiveness of the Indian small-scale automotive component units. The effect of technology is measured by directly introducing it in the production function along with the...
Working Paper
National Policies to Attract FDI in R&D
– An Assessment of Brazil and Selected Countries
This paper is part of a project based on a broad data collection of policies in selected countries, with a special focus on the attraction of foreign R&D investments. The purpose of the research is to contribute to effective policy-making, capable of...
Working Paper
Incubators as Tools for Entrepreneurship Promotion in Developing CountriesThis paper reviews the literature on incubators in developed and developing countries. We show that the concept of incubators has evolved in time according to market and firm needs. Contemporary successful incubators are profit-oriented, provide a...
Report
Firm-level Competitiveness and Technology in Vietnam (in Vietnamese)
– Evidence From a Survey in 2011
This report summarises information from the 2011 implementation of the Vietnam Technology and Competitiveness Survey, developed collaboratively between the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), the General Statistics Office (GSO) and the...
Report
Firm-level Competitiveness and Technology in Vietnam
– Evidence From a Survey in 2011
This report summarises information from the 2011 implementation of the Vietnam Technology and Competitiveness Survey, developed collaboratively between the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), the General Statistics Office (GSO) and the...
Report
Firm-Level Technology and Competitiveness in Vietnam
– Evidence from a Survey in 2013
This report summarises information from the 2013 Vietnam Technology and Competitiveness Survey (TCS), developed, in collaboration, by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), the General Statistics Office (GSO) and the Development...
Report
Firm-Level Technology and Competitiveness in Vietnam
– Evidence from 2010-2014 surveys
This report summarises information from the Vietnam Technology and Competitiveness Survey (TCS) that has been conducted every year since 2010, concluding with 2014. The TCS has been a collaborative effort of the Central Institute for Economic...
Working Paper
Measurement of a Multidimentional Index of Globalization and its Impact on Income InequalityIn this paper we present two composite indices of globalization. The first is based on the Kearney/Foreign Policy magazine and the second is obtained from principal component analysis. They indicate which countries have become most globalized and...
Journal Article
Measuring industry coagglomeration and identifying the driving forcesUnderstanding industry agglomeration and its driving forces is critical for the formulation of industrial policy in developing countries. Crucial to this process is the definition and measurement of agglomeration. We construct a new coagglomeration...
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