World Institute for Development Economics Research

About: World Institute for Development Economics Research is a facility organization based out in Helsinki, Finland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Poverty & Population. The organization has 110 authors who have published 525 publications receiving 17316 citations.

New economy in growth and development

Abstract: The benefits from the New Economy should accrue as improvements in productivity and economic growth. But while the use of information and communication technology seems to have had a substantial impact on the performance of the United States economy, the evidence for other countries is much weaker. This study does not find any significant correlation between ICT investment and economic growth in the period 1985-99 for a sample of 42 countries for which ICT spending data are available. Even more surprisingly and in contrast with some previous studies, the relationship is not statistically significant for the subsamples of industrial or high-income countries either. There are at least three possible explanations for this apparent ‘productivity paradox’. The most obvious one is the fact that not many countries, other than the US, have yet invested much in ICT. The second reason is that even if they have done so, they may not have invested enough in complementary infrastructure, like education and skills, in order to reap the benefits from ICT investment. Technology by itself is not a solution to any development problem; it only provides an opportunity. The third and the most controversial explanation is that the neoclassical method applied in assessing the

Formal–informal economy linkages and unemployment in south africa

Abstract: South Africa's high unemployment and small informal economy has been attributed to barriers to entry in informal labour markets. We develop a general equilibrium model based on a typology of informal activities that captures formal/informal linkages in product and labour markets. Simulations reveal that trade liberalisation increases formal employment, hurts informal producers, and favours informal traders and may explain the dominance of traders instead of producers. Wage subsidies also raise employment but further heighten competition for informal producers. Cash transfers favour informal employment, albeit with a fiscal burden. Results confirm the role of formal/informal linkages and product markets in explaining policy outcomes.

Information Technology and Economic Growth. A Cross-Country Analysis

Abstract: This paper explores the impacts of informatin technology investment on economic groth in a cross-section of 39 countries in the period 1980-95 by applying an explicit model of economic growth, the augmented version of the neoclassical (Solow) growth model.

Well-Being and the Extent of its Realisation in Poor Countries

Abstract: Two aspects of persons have alternatingly dominated the thinking of social philosophers over the centuries, each true in itself, but each quite incomplete without the other. One sees us capable of deliberation, having the potential capacity to do things. It details agency, choice, independence and selfdetermination, and thereby that aspect of our selves which fashions projects and pursues goals. The other views us as seats of utility or satisfaction; as loci of possible states of mind, attained by the extent to which desires are fulfilled, by the activities that are undertaken and the relationships enjoyed. If one vision sees us doing things, the other sees us residing in states of being. Where the former leads one to the language of freedom and rights, the latter directs one to a concern with welfare and happiness. These are related aspects of course, in fact so closely related that they have often been conflated into one without having caused any obvious damage. Consider for example that people often appeal to a category of socio-economic rights (that is, rights to certain scarce resources) when advocating policies which have an impact on the extent of absolute poverty in a society. Now, it is possible to use instead some notion of aggregate welfare and reach similar conclusions. We may, for instance, be considering the desirability of a nutrition-guarantee scheme. We could advocate it by invoking persons' wellbeing interests, such as certain types of positive rights. (See Section VI.) We could also commend it on grounds of aggregate utility. We could do this by noting first that nutrition intake is a determinant of individual welfare, that at low levels of intake it is a critical determinant, and that in the absence of such a scheme a sizeable fraction of the population would be vulnerable to food deprivation. We could thus argue that the level of aggregate welfare which