Filter by...
Reset all
Publications (28)
Blog
According to the World Bank, Indonesia has reached the upper-middle income status in 2019 after spending almost two decades in the lower-middle income country group. Despite the setback of COVID-19 the Indonesian government aspires to become a ‘developed’ country by 2045, when the country will...
Erica stands under a rudimentary market stall in Accra, Ghana, selling fruits — she has done this every day for 10 years now. Like many women in the Global South, Erica was only able to attend school for a few years before having to leave to work and support her family. Initially she was training to...
– Building just societies
To celebrate its 35th birthday, UNU-WIDER has looked back at some of its greatest achievements. As the year closes, Armida Alisjahbana, Kunal Sen, Andy Sumner, and Arief Yusuf highlight the continued impact of UNU-WIDER’s flagship work and the future of knowledge about building more just societies...
Policy makers seeking inclusive growth frequently face the developer’s dilemma between prioritizing structural transformation, which is potentially inequitable, and keeping a check on rising economic inequality. How this dilemma is resolved by different countries and what factors influence the...
Technological catch-up is bringing new asynchronies to development pathways. What does this mean for employment, globalization, and inequality? A chapter in the volume The Developer’s Dilemma, which traces trends of structural transformation, offers a framework for understanding the emerging global...
– What would the pioneers of development economics make of new trends in developing economies?
Today, we see clear trends in developing countries of a potentially troubling ‘new normal’ for economic development. We see tertiarization with rising inequality. We see urbanization without growth. And we see the expansion of the globally-integrated sector of the economy with little direct job...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of Brazil
Through rapid urbanization, Brazil—previously a country where most workers were in the agricultural sector—went through a strong process of structural transformation that lasted almost four decades until economic liberalization at the beginning of the 1990s. During the same period, income inequality...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper evaluates structural change, inequality dynamics, and industrial policy in South Africa between 1960 and the present day. We find that South Africa experienced growth-enhancing structural transformation until the early 1970s, before entering a period of premature deindustrialization...
Working Paper
pdf
– Structural transformation and inclusive growth in Thailand
Between 1981 and 2017, real gross domestic product in Thailand grew at an average annual rate of 5.7 per cent. Agricultural output grew more slowly than industry or services, and its gross domestic product share consequently declined. Industry’s gross domestic product share increased, and the share...
Working Paper
pdf
The Bangladesh economy has undergone significant structural changes over the last four decades. The share of agriculture in GDP has declined, while the significance of industry and service sectors has increased. These structural changes have been associated with persistent challenges such as lack of...
Working Paper
pdf
This study examines the structural transformation–inclusive growth nexus for Ghana. The data cover the post-independence period for Ghana and are phased into three periods: the post-independence period to the start of the economic recovery programme (ERP) and structural adjustment programme (SAP)...
Working Paper
pdf
– A survey of structural transformation and inequality dynamics
This paper discusses the ‘developer’s dilemma’—a tension emerging from the fact that developing countries are simultaneously seeking structural transformation and broad-based growth to raise incomes of the poor. Simon Kuznets originally hypothesized that structural transformation may have a tendency...
Working Paper
pdf
In this paper, we analyse the relationship between China’s structural transformation and the inclusiveness of its economic growth. China’s economy has undergone significant structural changes since it initiated the economic reforms in 1978. Economic activities have shifted from the low-productivity...
Working Paper
pdf
– Kuznets’ ‘developer’s dilemma’ in Indonesia
We focus on special characteristics of the manufacturing sector, in terms of employment generation and productivity growth, that enable the rapid, resilient economic catch-up of developing countries. We consider the ‘developer’s dilemma’ and the relationship between manufacturing value added or...
Working Paper
pdf
– The future of structural change in the developing world
This paper traces a set of major trends and future scenarios in global structural change. It argues that across multiple domains of change, developing economies are facing novel constellations of lateness and prematurity in technological and economic development. The paper explores these novel...
Working Paper
pdf
– Two episodes
Developing countries face a trade-off between the twin objectives of structural transformation and inclusive growth. This is the ‘developer’s dilemma’. This study analyses the dilemma as it manifested itself in the Indian context, and identifies two distinct episodes over the post-independence...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of Chile
This paper describes the structural transformations that Chile has experienced in the last 50 years and how they have contributed—or not—to inclusive growth and genuine economic modernization from a historical perspective. The empirical analysis of the paper shows a premature deindustrialization...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of Indonesia
Discussions on the developing world’s industrial policies have largely neglected the role of state-owned entities. This paper argues that the resurgence of state capitalism has been, in part, the response of developing countries to the recent pattern of structural transformation involving weak...
Blog
From 2000-2014, like many other sub-Saharan African countries, Kenya experienced high growth, at an average of 4.37 percent. Unfortunately, the 2007-2008 election-related violence as well as the global financial crisis halted much of Kenya’s economic progress, meaning it has lagged slightly behind...
Over the past two decades, Ghana’s economy experienced an average annual growth rate of 5.8 percent, and became a low-middle income country in 2007. Though Ghana’s average annual employment growth between 1993 and 2013 has been higher than sub-Saharan Africa’s—3.7 percent versus 3.0 percent—its...
Mozambique, over the last two decades, has experienced explosive growth, with an average GDP growth rate of almost 8 percent between 1997-2015. Not only that, but, for the most part, Mozambique has a track record of solid macroeconomic policies, like controlling inflation, reducing current account...
Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest economy and most populous country, has recorded high growth in recent years. Indeed, real GDP growth rate was 6.31 in 2014 (compared to the regional average of 4.35). Life expectancy has also increased (by 6.9 years since 1980) and so has mean years of schooling...
Working Paper
pdf
Ethiopia has experienced rapid economic growth since 2005. Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an average rate of 10.5 per cent per annum for the period between 2004–05 and 2013–14. Public investment in key infrastructure and interventions in the agriculture sector have made important...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper looks to uncover the growth traps and opportunities for the South African economy, with a focus on underlying labour market dynamics. We explore the potential of South Africa’s demographic dividend. We also consider the structure of the labour market and the growth-employment interactions...
Working Paper
pdf
Ghana’s status as one of the African Lions is linked to the country’s remarkable growth performance, which culminated in the attainment of lower middle-income status. However, employment response to growth has been weak. Additionally, growth has been accompanied by substantial reduction in poverty...
Working Paper
pdf
– Kenya country case study
This paper mainly analyses the drivers of economic growth in Kenya and the linkages to the labour market dynamics, with a focus on population growth, its structure, and the prospects of reaping a demographic dividend. This is in recognition that Kenya, as the ninth largest economy in Africa and the...
Working Paper
pdf
This study examines the relationship between growth and employment in Nigeria to gain insights into the country's paradox of high economic growth alongside rising poverty and inequality. The methodology adopted is the Shapley decomposition approach, complemented with econometric estimation of the...
Working Paper
pdf
Over the past twenty years, Mozambique has achieved remarkable progress in promoting macroeconomic growth and stability. Nonetheless, poverty rates remain high and labour market activity is dominated by smallholder farming. We use recent household survey data to dig into these trends and provide an...
Displaying 28 of 28 results