Blog
Science and Survival: Is an Agriculture-led Developmental Model the Way Forward for sub-Saharan Africa?
9 May 2013 Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen and Roger Williamson Pathways to Industrialization in the Twenty-First Century, (edited by Adam Szirmai, Wim...
Blog
China and India’s Development Strategies: Lessons for Developing Countries
by
Amelia U. Santos-Paulino, Guanghua Wan
October 2010
Amelia U. Santos-Paulino and Guanghua Wan China and India have become global economic powers. Even at the market exchange rate, China overtook Japan...
Policy Brief
Promoting Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries
This policy brief provides some fresh perspectives on the relationship between entrepreneurship and development, and considers policy design issues. It reports on the UNU-WIDER two-year research project 'Promoting Entrepreneurial Capacity', which...
Journal Article
Institutions, Governance and Technology Catch-Up in North Africa
This paper aims to analyse the effects of institution quality on technology catch-up in five North African countries (Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Sudan and Tunisia) compared to 3 groups of developing and emerging countries (Sub Saharan Africa, Asia, and...
Journal Special Issue
Southern Growth Engines and Technology Giants
Fast-growing developing countries have emerged as an important destination and source of trade, investments and technology. Furthermore, trade between developing countries has grown rapidly over the last decades, and is becoming more diversified...
Working Paper
Exporting and Productivity
In this paper, we investigate the relationship between exporting and productivity in the case of Vietnam using an extensive firm level panel dataset for the period 2005-11. We separate out productivity effects of exporting due to self-selection...
Journal Article
Technology Adoption and Food Security in Subsistence Agriculture
This paper evaluates the impact of an intervention to improve farming techniques and food security in the Gaza area of rural Mozambique. We examine the impact of a group-based approach to technology adoption in subsistence agriculture, using panel...
Working Paper
Innovation Capabilities for Sustainable Development in Africa
A sustainable pathway for Africa in the twenty-first century is laid out in the setting of the development of innovation capabilities and the capture of latecomer advantages. Africa has missed out on these possibilities in the twentieth century while...
Working Paper
Industrial policy, learning, and development
Industrial policies have played an important role in successful development. Through these policies, governments intervene in the market’s sectoral allocation of resources and choice of technologies. Earlier industrial policies had a narrow remit and...
Policy Brief
Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries
How does innovation impact on development? How, and under what conditions, do entrepreneurs in developing countries innovate? And what can be done to support innovation by entrepreneurs in developing countries? This policy brief addresses these...
Blog
Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Development: Lessons from Finland
by
Otto Toivanen
October 2009
Otto Toivanen At least since the 1950s it has been recognized that innovation is central to economic growth. It has also been well understood that...
Working Paper
Modeling Fuel Choice Among Households in Northern Cameroon
The present study aims to explore economic and socio-demographic factors that influence the household’s probability to switch from firewood to clean fuels in northern Cameroon. The paper employs an ordered probit model to construct cooking patterns...
Journal Article
Structural Transformation, Biased Technological Change and Employment in Vietnam
Employment in Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia has grown more slowly than GDP over the last several decades. This means GDP per capita is rising. Vietnamese policymakers, however, are concerned that ongoing structural transformation is creating too few...
Working Paper
The Process of Economic Change
A good deal is known about what makes for successful economic development, but very little is known about how to get there - that entails an understanding of the process of economic change. The paper first examines the sources of successful growth...
Working Paper
Computers and Labour Markets
The rapid diffusion of computers has widely changed the consequences of computer use on the labour market. While at the beginning of the eighties knowledge of computers was an obvious advantage in a career, this same knowledge is now so commonplace...
Working Paper
The Role of Knowledge and Capital in Economic Growth
This paper discusses new ideas in growth theory focusing on how to make sustained growth feasible. It first reviews models that broadened the notion of capital to include human capital and the state of technology. The paper next surveys models which...
Journal Article
Technology Transfers, Foreign Investment and Productivity Spillovers
This paper explores the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and the productivity of host country domestic firms. We rely on a specially designed survey of over 4000 manufacturing firms in Vietnam, and separate out productivity gains...
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
Love Thy Neighbour?
There is increasing evidence to suggest that a fundamental source of information for farmers on how to access and use new agricultural technologies comes from interacting with neighbours. Economic research on adoption of innovations in a rural...
Journal Article
Drivers of productivity in Vietnamese SMEs: the role of management standards and innovation
Using a rich panel dataset of small and medium scale manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) active in the manufacturing sector in Viet Nam, this paper investigates the drivers of firm productivity, focusing on the role played by international management...
Working Paper
Export Performance in Chile
Since the mid-1970s, Chile's exports have expanded at a fast rate, and the export basket has diversified considerably, away from copper towards other primary commodities and commodity-intensive manufactures. This paper explores the causal factors and...
Working Paper
Globalization, Marginalization and Development
This paper surveys issues related to globalization, and the obstacles to the successful integration of vulnerable economies. For many developing countries, the positive benefits of the increased globalization that has been taking place since around...
Book Chapter
Innovation Capabilities for Sustainable Development in Africa
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
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
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
ICT and Economic Growth in Asia
by
Sailesh K. Jha
2002
by Sailesh K. Jha Exports have been one of the key drivers of economic growth in several Asian DMCs in the 1990s. During this period the composition...
Blog
Celebrating 30 years of research for development
by
Roger Williamson
September 2015
The celebration of the 30th Anniversary of UNU-WIDER presented the ideal opportunity to look back, take stock, and plan ahead. Where else can a group...