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
The View from Buenos Aires
Tony Addison A visit to Buenos Aires in September provided a good vantage point to look at the euro zone’s deepening crisis. Angle readers will recall...
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...
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
Scoping Study on the Evolution of Industry in Ghana
This paper chronicles the evolution of industry in Ghana over the post-independence era from an inward over-protected import substitution industrialization strategy of 1960-83 to an outward liberalized strategy during 1984-2000, and since 2001, to...
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...
Annual Lecture
From Flying Geese to Leading Dragons
Structural transformation is a pre-requisite for sustained growth and poverty reduction — such was the conviction of development economists in the mid twentieth century. They demonstrated empirically that moving resources out of low-productivity...
Blog
Global Recycling Supply Chains and Waste Picking in Developing Countries
by
Martin Medina
December 2009
Martin Medina As world leaders gather in Copenhagen this month for the fifteenth United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) the challenges...
Blog
Is Manufacturing Still the Main Engine of Growth in Developing Countries?
by
Adam Szirmai
May 2009
Adam Szirmai Since the late 18th century, the manufacturing sector has been the main engine of growth and catch up. Presently, however, service sector...
Working Paper
The Theory and Practice of Agriculture, Growth, and Development in Africa
Africa’s improved growth performance over the last 15 years provides an opportunity for the continent to transit from recovery to structural transformation. This paper reviews the evolution of development theory and practice, the role of agriculture...
Blog
Twenty Years After the Fall of the Berlin Wall: The Travails of East Germany’s Economic Transition
by
Charles S. Maier
November 2009
Charles S. Maier When the Berlin Wall fell, twenty years ago, on 9 November 1989, many expected that the East German (German Democratic Republic - DDR...
Working Paper
The Practice of Industrial Policy – Lessons for Africa
This paper draws on both successful and failing cases of industrialization in China to analyse the role of local governments in fostering the growth of light manufacturing. The broad spectrum of support types and the intimate knowledge of enterprise...
Working Paper
Costa Rica
Over the last thirty-five years, Costa Rican exports (in dollars) have grown at an average annual growth rate of 10.8 per cent. In the context of an import substituting industrialization and subregional integration, exports grew at increasingly...