Working Paper
Diffusion of agricultural innovations in Guinea-Bissau
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...
Blog
Technology and supermarket chains can help strengthen southern Africa’s food systems
by
Thando Vilakazi, Namhla Landani
February 2021
Agriculture 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
by
Lukas Schlogl
December 2020
Technological catch-up is bringing new asynchronies to development pathways. What does this mean for employment, globalization, and inequality? A...
Working Paper
Sources of output growth in the countries of the Common Monetary Area and provinces of South Africa
This 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
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
Technology and clientelist politics in India
This 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...
Blog
Reflecting Change: The Second Edition of ‘From Poverty to Power’
by
Duncan Green
November 2012
Duncan Green Updating a book on contemporary events can be unnerving. In the intervening years, events and new thinking combine to expose the...
Working Paper
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...
Report
Firm-level Competitiveness and Technology in Vietnam (in Vietnamese)
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
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
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
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 Inequality
In 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 forces
Understanding 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...
Working Paper
Digital technologies and ‘value’ capture in global value chains
This paper examines whether digitalization can be a driver of ‘upgrading’ in global value chains and help developing countries move into higher value-added activities. In particular, the paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of digital...
Working Paper
The social shaping of nuclear energy technology in South Africa
This paper analyses the question why the South African government intends to procure nuclear energy technology, despite affordable and accessible fossil and renewable energy alternatives. We analyse the social shaping of nuclear energy technology...
Working Paper
Diffusion of Digital Mobile Telephony
Factors determining the diffusion of digital mobile telephony across 200 developed and developing countries in the 1990s are studied with the aid of a Gompertz model. The market size and network effects are found to play more important roles in the...
Working Paper
What drives parental investments in early childhood?
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
Behavioral Design
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...
Working Paper
New technologies create opportunities
This 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
Planning for Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power in South Africa
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
Learning to Export and Learning by Exporting
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
The Weightless Economy in Economic Development
Can the increasing significance of knowledge-products in national income— the growing weightless economy—influence economic development? Those technologies reduce “distance” between consumers and knowledge production. This paper analyzes a model...
Working Paper
Globalization, Technology, and Income Inequality
Much of the vast literature on changes in income distribution in advanced countries during the last two decades attributes these either to globalization (specifically in the form of trade liberalization with low-wage developing countries), or to...
Working Paper
Selective Policies for Export Promotion
This paper considers the rationale for and limitations to selective export promotion policies in developing countries, with a focus on manufactured exports. It draws upon the experience of the most successful exporters in the developing world - the...
Report
Firm-level Competitiveness and Technology in Vietnam :
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) :
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
Indo-Sri Lanka Economic Cooperation
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 :
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...
Journal Article
Consumption risk, technology adoption and poverty traps
Much has been written on the determinants of technology adoption in agriculture, with issues such as input availability, knowledge and education, risk preferences, profitability, and credit constraints receiving much attention. This paper focuses on...
Working Paper
Gender Differentiation in the Analysis of Alternative Farm Mechanization Choices on Small Farms in Kenya
Using multinomial logit we analyze factors that influence the choice of mechanization technologies in Nyanza Province. The results show that farmers are aware of the attributes of the mechanization technologies, and that animal traction is the most...
Plenary session
The globotics transformation and development
Watch the live stream recording Digital technology is transforming globalization and robotics (‘globotics’) at a furious pace, and thus changing the opportunities and challenges facing developing and developed economies. This talk argues that...
Journal Article
Productivity measurement in Swedish departments of gynecology and obstetrics
The 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...
Blog
Cost of Capital: The Real Price of Green Energy
by
Carl-Gustav Lindén
July 2013
4 July 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén In recent years the price of green energy technology has come down dramatically. This means that European investments...
Research Brief
An Assessment of a Village Development Programme in Mozambique
The 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...
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
Helping Poor Farmers to Help Themselves
This paper evaluates the impact of an integrated rural development programme on farming techniques and food security in the Gaza area of rural Mozambique. We examine the impact of a group-based approach, in a country with few impact evaluations of...
Book
Technological Transformation in the Third World
Offers information about how three developed countries have utilized technology in their advancement in the post-World War II period. Japan, Finland and Greece are assessed in terms of economic growth and structural factors, along with an examination...
Working Paper
Comparing the development of agricultural technology and information technology in rural Vietnam
This 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
Technological Transformation in the Third World
Offers information about how three developed countries have utilized technology in their advancement in the post-World War II period. Japan, Finland and Greece are assessed in terms of economic growth and structural factors, along with an examination...
Journal Article
Financing the New Economy
Part of Journal Special Issue
The New Economy
Lecture
IEA seminar — Digital Technologies: Limits and Opportunities for Economic Development
A discussion featuring Dani Rodrik, Daren Acemoglu, Mahdi Ghodsi, Kunal Sen, Albert Park, and Haroon Bhorat. These leading economists discuss the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the role of technology in shaping welfare outcomes in developing...
Tue, 12 October 2021
Online,
Finland
Past event
Working Paper
Making agricultural value chains more inclusive through technology and innovation
Some 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
Credit Constraints as a Barrier to Technology Adoption by the Poor
We study the diffusion of a capital intensive technology among a fishing community in south India and analyze the dynamics of income inequality during this process. We find that lack of asset wealth is an important predictor of delayed technology...
Working Paper
Innovations, High-Tech Trade and Industrial Development
Innovations spur science-based trade and industrial development in a fast changing pace of globalization. Knowledge accumulation and diffusion have been increasingly recognised as fundamental factors that play an important role in long-run economic...
Working Paper
Decomposing Growth: Do Low-Income and HIPCs Differ from High-Income Countries?
This paper studies the distribution of output per worker between the years 1980 and 2000 in different country groups. The study uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to decompose the changes in the distribution of labour productivity into changes in...
Working Paper
Domestic revenue mobilization and informality
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 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 Africa
This 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...
Blog
Fintech and domestic savings: A perfect match coming true in sub-Saharan Africa
by
Josphat Machagua
November 2022
Financial technology (FinTech) is a major force disrupting the structure of financial services in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and enabling access of...
Working Paper
Globalization, Technology Transfer, and Skill Accumulation in Low-Income Countries
Globalization 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
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
Smart classrooms and education outcomes
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...
Working Paper
Measuring Industry Agglomeration and Identifying the Driving Forces
Understanding 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...
Working Paper
Digital de-industrialization, global value chains, and structural transformation
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...
Working Paper
India’s development cooperation in Africa
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...
Working Paper
International and Intra-national Technology Spillovers and Technology Development Paths in Developing Countries
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
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
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
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
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 Countries
This 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...
News
Study Shows Effectiveness of Mobile Phones in Promoting Reading and Literacy in Developing Countries
A UNESCO study published 23 April, on the occasion of World Book and Copyright Day explains how mobile technology is used to facilitate reading and improve literacy in developing countries.
Annual Lecture
WIDER Annual Lecture 3 - Is Rising Income Inequality Inevitable? A Critique of the Transatlantic Consensus
Many people believe that rising income inequality is inevitable. It is the result of forces, such as technological change, over which we have no control, or of developments such as globalisation, which are irreversible.
Mon, 1 November 1999
University of Oslo,
Oslo,
Norway
Past event
Journal Article
Productivity Growth, Efficiency and Outsourcing in Manufacturing and Service Industries
This 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...
Book
Technological Transformation in the Third World
Offers information about how three developed countries have utilized technology in their advancement in the post-World War II period. Japan, Finland and Greece are assessed in terms of economic growth and structural factors, along with an examination...
Book
Technological Transformation in the Third World
Offers information about how three developed countries have utilized technology in their advancement in the post-World War II period. Japan, Finland and Greece are assessed in terms of economic growth and structural factors, along with an examination...
Book
Technological Transformation in the Third World
Offers information about how three developed countries have utilized technology in their advancement in the post-World War II period. Japan, Finland and Greece are assessed in terms of economic growth and structural factors, along with an examination...