Showing papers on "Developing country published in 2003"

Effects of Financial Globalization on Developing Countries: Some Empirical Evidence

Abstract: The recent wave of financial globalization since the mid-1980s has been marked by a surge in capital flows among industrial countries and, more notably, between industrial and developing countries. While these capital flows have been associated with high growth rates in some developing countries, a number of countries have experienced periodic collapse in growth rates and significant financial crises over the same period, crises that have exacted a serious toll in terms of macroeconomic and social costs. As a result, an intense debate has emerged in both academic and policy circles on the effects of financial integration for developing economies. But much of the debate has been based on only casual and limited empirical evidence.

Democratic Governance and Multinational Corporations: Political Regimes and Inflows of Foreign Direct Investment

Abstract: Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important element of the global economy and a central component of economic development strategies of both developed and developing countries. Numerous scholars theorize that the economic benefits of attracting multinational corporations come at tremendous political costs, arguing that democratic political systems attract lower levels of international investment than their authoritarian counterparts. Using both cross-sectional and time-series cross-sectional tests of the determinants of FDI for more than 100 countries, I generate results that are inconsistent with these dire predictions. Democratic political systems attract higher levels of FDI inflows both across countries and within countries over time. Democratic countries are predicted to attract as much as 70 percent more FDI than their authoritarian counterparts. In a final empirical test, I examine how democratic institutions affect country credibility by empirically analyzing the link between democracy and sovereign debt risk for about eighty countries from 1980 to 1998. These empirical tests challenge the conventional wisdom on the preferences of multinationals for authoritarian regimes.

The Quantity and Quality of Life and the Evolution of World Inequality

Abstract: Lack of income convergence for the world as a whole has led to concerns about the impact of globalization of markets on world inequality. GDP per capita is usually used to proxy for the quality of life of individuals living in different countries. However, well-being is also affected by quantity of life, as represented by longevity. This paper incorporates longevity into an overall assessment of the evolution of cross-country inequality. The absence of income convergence noticed in the growth literature is in stark contrast with the reduction in inequality after incorporating recent gains in longevity. The paper computes a full' income measure to value the life expectancy gains experienced by 49 countries between 1965 and 1995. Countries starting with lower income tended to grow more in terms of full' income than countries starting with higher income. The average growth rate of full' income is about 140% for developed countries, compared to 192% for developing countries. Additionally, we decompose changes in life expectancy into changes attributable to thirteen broad groups of causes of death. Infectious, respiratory and digestive diseases, congenital and perinatal conditions, and ill-defined' conditions are responsible for most of the mortality convergence observed between 1965 and 1995.

Gender and Development

Abstract: Global financial problems, rising food prices, climate change, international migration – increasingly by women – conflict situations in many poor countries, the spread of tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever and the increased incidence of HIV/AIDS and TB, and changing patterns of trade have all added new dimensions to gender issues in developing countries. These problems are frequently being brought to public attention in the media and through long-haul tourism. Consequently students’ interest in gender and development has grown considerably in the last few years. This updated second edition provides a concise, accessible introduction to Gender and Development issues in the developing world and in the transition countries of Eastern and Central Europe. The nine chapters include discussions on changes in theoretical approaches, gender complexities and the Millennium Development Goals; social and biological reproduction including differing attitudes to family planning by states and variation in education and access to housing; differences in health and violence at major life stages for women and men and natural disasters and gender roles in rural and urban areas. The penultimate chapter considers the impact of broad economic changes such as the globalization of trade and communications on gender differences in economic activity and the final chapter addresses international progress towards gender equality as measured by the global gender gap. The text is particularly strong on environmental aspects and the new edition builds on this to consider the effects of climate change and declining natural resources illustrated by a case study of changing gender roles in fishing in India. There is also enhanced coverage of topics such as global trade, sport as a development tool, masculinities, and sustainable agriculture. Maps, statistics, references and boxed case studies have been updated throughout and their coverage widened. Gender and Development is the only broad based introduction to the topic written specifically for a student audience. It features student friendly items such as chapter learning objectives, discussion questions, annotated guides to further reading and websites. The text is enlivened throughout with examples and case studies drawn from the author’s worldwide field research and consultancies with international development agencies over four decades and her experience of teaching the topic to undergraduates and postgraduates in many countries. It will be an essential text for a variety of courses on development, women’s studies, sociology, anthropology and geography.

What strategies are viable for developing countries today? the world trade organization and the shrinking of 'development space'

Abstract: The world is currently experiencing a surge of international regulations aimed at limiting the development policy options of developing country governments. Of the three big agreements coming out of the Uruguay Round ‐ on investment measures (TRIMS), trade in services (GATS), and intellectual property rights (TRIPS) ‐ the first two limit the authority of developing country governments to constrain the choices of companies operating in their territory, while the third requires the governments to enforce rigorous property rights of foreign (generally Western) firms. Together the agreements make comprehensively illegal many of the industrial policy instruments used in the successful East Asian developers to nurture their own industrial and technological capacities and are likely to lock in the position of Western countries at the top of the world hierarchy of wealth. The paper describes how the three agreements constitute a modern version of Friedrich List’s ‘kicking away the ladder’. It then outlines some needed changes in the way we think about development and in the role of multilateral organizations. It concludes that the practical prospects for change along these lines are slender, but not negligible.

Finance and the Sources of Growth at Various Stages of Economic Development

Abstract: This paper studies the effects of financial development on the sources of growth in different groups of countries. Recent theoretical work shows that financial development may affect productivity and capital accumulation in different ways in industrial versus developing countries. This hypothesis is tested with panel data from 74 countries using GMM dynamic panel techniques. Results are consistent with the hypothesis: finance has a strong positive influence on productivity growth primarily in more developed economies. In less developed economies, the effect of finance on output growth occurs primarily through capital accumulation.

Global production and consumption of animal source foods.

Abstract: This article provides interpreted statistics and information on global livestock production and the consumption of animal source foods from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations statistical data base. Country data are collected through questionnaires sent annually to member countries, magnetic tapes, diskettes, computer transfers, websites of the countries, national/international publications, country visits made by the FAO statisticians and reports of FAO representatives in member countries. These data show that livestock production is growing rapidly, which is interpreted to be the result of the increasing demand for animal products. Although there is a great rise in global livestock production, the pattern of consumption is very uneven. The countries that consume the least amount of meat are in Africa and South Asia. The main determinant of per capita meat consumption appears to be wealth. Overall, there has been a rise in the production of livestock products and this is expected to continue in the future. This is particularly the case in developing countries. The greatest increase is in the production of poultry and pigs, as well as eggs and milk. However, this overall increase obscures the fact that the increased supply is restricted to certain countries and regions, and is not occurring in the poorer African countries. Consumption of ASF is declining in these countries, from an already low level, as population increases.

Measuring health inequality among children in developing countries: does the choice of the indicator of economic status matter?

Abstract: Background Currently, poor-rich inequalities in health in developing countries receive a lot of attention from both researchers and policy makers. Since measuring economic status in developing countries is often problematic, different indicators of wealth are used in different studies. Until now, there is a lack of evidence on the extent to which the use of different measures of economic status affects the observed magnitude of health inequalities.

Winners and losers from regional integration agreements

Abstract: How are the benefits and costs of a customs union divided between member countries? Outcomes depend on the comparative advantage of members, relative to each other and relative to the rest of the world. Countries with a comparative advantage between that of their partners and the rest of the world do better than countries with an ‘extreme’ comparative advantage. Consequently, integration between low income countries tends to lead to divergence of member country incomes, while agreements between high income countries cause convergence. Results suggest that developing countries are likely to be better served by ‘north-south’ than by ‘south-south’ agreements.

International migration, remittances, and poverty in developing countries

Abstract: Few studies have examined the impact of international migration and remittances on poverty in a broad cross-section of developing countries. The authors try to fill this gap by constructing a new data set on poverty, international migration, and remittances for 74 low- and middle-income developing countries. Four key findings emerge: 1) International migration-defined as the share of a country's population living abroad-has a strong, statistical impact in reducing poverty. On average, a 10 percent increase in the share of international migrants in a country's population will lead to a 1.9 percent decline in the share of people living in poverty ($1.00 a person a day). 2) Distance to a major labor-receiving region-like the United States or OECD (Europe)-has an important effect on international migration. Developing countries that are located closest to the United States or OECD (Europe) are also those countries with the highest rates of migration. 3) An inverted U-shaped curve exists between the level of country per capita income and international migration. Developing countries with low or high per capita GDP produce smaller shares of international migrants than do middle-income developing countries. The authors find no evidence that developing countries with higher levels of poverty produce more migrants. Because of considerable travel costs associated with international migration, international migrants come from those income groups which are just above the poverty line in middle-income developing countries. 4) International remittances-defined as the share of remittances in country GDP-have a strong, statistical impact in reducing poverty. On average, a 10 percent increase in the share of international remittances in a country's GDP will lead to a 1.6 percent decline in the share of people living in poverty.

International Migration, Remittances, and the Brain Drain : A Study of 24 Labor-Exporting Countries

Abstract: While the level of international migration and remittances continues to grow, data on international migration remains unreliable. At the international level, there is no consistent set of statistics on the number or skill characteristics of international migrants. At the national level, most labor-exporting countries do not collect data on their migrants. Adams tries to overcome these problems by constructing a new data set of 24 large, labor-exporting countries and using estimates of migration and educational attainment based on United States and OECD records. He uses these new data to address the key policy question: How pervasive is the brain drain from labor-exporting countries? Three basic findings emerge: With respect to legal migration, international migration involves the movement of the educated. The vast majority of migrants to both the United States and the OECD have a secondary (high school) education or higher. While migrants are well-educated, international migration does not tend to take a very high proportion of the best educated. For 22 of the 33 countries in which educational attainment data can be estimated, less than 10 percent of the best educated (tertiary-educated) population of labor-exporting countries has migrated. For a handful of labor-exporting countries, international migration does cause brain drain. For example, for the five Latin American countries (Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Jamaica and Mexico) located closest to the United States, migration takes a large share of the best educated. This finding suggests that more work needs to be done on the relationship between brain drain, geographical proximity to labor-receiving countries, and the size of the (educated) population of labor-exporting countries.

Push and pull factors in international nurse migration.

Abstract: Purpose: To describe the push and pull factors of migration in relation to international recruitment and migration of nurses. Organizing Construct: Review of literature on nurse migration, examination of effects of donor and receiving countries, and discussion of ethical concerns related to foreign nurse recruitment. Findings: The primary donor countries are Australia, Canada, the Philippines, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (UK); the primary receiving countries are Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and the United States (US). The effects of migration on donor countries include the loss of skilled personnel and economic investment; receiving countries receive skilled nurses to fill critical shortages with less economic investment. Ethical concerns include the potential for exploitation of foreign nurses. Conclusions: Nurses migrate to seek better wages and working conditions than they have in their native countries. Given the current conditions, developed countries continue to actively recruit foreign nurses to fill critical shortages. Migration is predicted to continue until developed countries address the underlying causes of nurse shortages and until developing countries address conditions that cause nurses to leave.

Randomized Evaluations of Educational Programs in Developing Countries: Some Lessons

Abstract: This paper reviews recent randomized evaluations of educational programs in developing countries, including programs to increase school participation, to provide educational inputs, and to reform education. It then extracts some lessons for education policy and for the practice and political economy of randomized evaluations.

Completing the fertility transition in the developing world: The role of educational differences and fertility preferences

Abstract: This study summarizes patterns of educational differentials in wanted and unwanted fertility at different stages of the fertility transition. The data are from Demographic and Health Surveys in 57 less developed countries. As the transition proceeds, educational differentials in wanted fertility tend to decline and differentials in unwanted fertility tend to rise. An assessment of fertility patterns in developed and less developed countries with low fertility concludes that these differentials are likely to remain substantial when less developed countries reach the end of their transitions. This conclusion implies that the educational composition of the population remains a key predictor of overall fertility in late transitional countries and that low levels of schooling can be a cause of stalling fertility.

Migration as a source of growth: the perspective of a developing country.

Abstract: This paper analyses the dynamics of migratory flows and growth in a developing economy. We show that when workers freely choose their location, some natives can rationally decide to return to their home country after they have accumulated a certain amount of knowledge abroad, while some prefer to stay permanently in the same economy (either at home or abroad). We point out that worker mobility can have an expansionary effect on the developing economy. Moreover, we show that in the long-run, as the sending economy develops, fewer natives are likely to emigrate and more migrants are likely to return.

The transmission of world commodity prices to domestic markets under policy reforms in developing countries

Abstract: This paper examines the degree to which world price signals have been transmitted into domestic prices for eight countries and ten commodities, a total of 31 country/commodity pairs. The main characteristic of these countries was that they all undertook substantial policy reforms during the mid‐1980s to early 1990s. The paper investigates the effect of reforms on the speed at which signals were transmitted to domestic markets and on the extent of price transmission. We find that Chile, Mexico, and Argentina are the only countries whose domestic commodity markets were integrated with world markets. For the remaining cases (Ghana, Madagascar, Indonesia, Egypt, and Colombia) in only a few country/commodity pairs is there some passthrough of world price changes. In terms of the effects of policy reforms, in the majority of the cases the hypothesis of a structural break following the reform year is rejected.

How fast are tourism countries growing? The cross country evidence

Abstract: Specializing in tourism is an option available to a number of less developed countries and regions But is it a good option? To answer this question, we have compared the relative growth performance of 14 "tourism countries" within a sample of 143 countries, observed during the period 1980-95 Using standard OLS cross-country growth regressions, we have documented that the tourism countries grow significantly faster than all the other sub-groups considered in our analysis (OECD, Oil, LDC, Small) Moreover, we have shown that the reason why they are growing faster is neither that they are poorer than the average; nor that they have particularly high saving/investment propensities; nor that they are very open to trade In other words, the positive performance of the tourism countries is not significantly accounted for by the traditional growth factors of the Mankiw, Romer and Weil type of models Tourism specialization appears to be an independent determinant A corollary of our findings is that the role played by the tourism sector should not be ignored by the debate about whether smallness is harmful for growth (eg Easterly and Kraay (2000), who conclude that there is no growth disadvantage in smallness) Half of the thirty countries classified as microstates in this literature are heavily dependent on tourism Once this distinction is adopted, it is easy to see that the small tourism countries perform much better than the remaining small countries In our findings, smallness per se can be bad for growth, while the opposite is true when smallness goes together with a specialization in tourism

Investing in Maternal Health in Malaysia and Sri Lanka

Abstract: The difference between maternal mortality in the industrialized and developing world is greater than any other development indicator. The apparent lack of progress in this area has generated a sense of hopelessness. Malaysia and Sri Lanka are two of the very few developing countries that have succeeded in reducing maternal mortality to levels comparable to many industrialized countries. This study provides a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the factors that contributed to maternal mortality decline in Malaysia and Sri Lanka over the last 50 to 60 years. It considers policy issues, health system developments, health system expenditures in maternal health, and the use in both countries of professionally trained midwives.

The Health and Poverty of Nations: From theory to practice

Abstract: Health is both a direct component of human well-being and a form of human capital that increases an individual's capabilities. We argue that these two views are complementary and that both can be used to justify increased investment in health in developing countries. In particular, we argue that the large effect improved health has on household incomes and economic growth makes it an important tool for poverty reduction. We survey the literature on the link between improvements in health and improved economic growth at the national level and also the link between improvements in health and improved productivity and wages at the household level. The theoretical arguments and related empirical evidence demonstrate a large effect of health improvements on productivity, household incomes, and economic growth. Given the large payoffs to health that exist in developing countries, we assess how health can be improved. We also argue that the income gains that result from health interventions can potentially feed ...

Developing evidence-based ethical policies on the migration of health workers: conceptual and practical challenges.

Abstract: It is estimated that in 2000 almost 175 million people, or 2.9% of the world's population, were living outside their country of birth, compared to 100 million, or 1.8% of the total population, in 1995. As the global labour market strengthens, it is increasingly highly skilled professionals who are migrating. Medical practitioners and nurses represent a small proportion of highly skilled workers who migrate, but the loss of health human resources for developing countries can mean that the capacity of the health system to deliver health care equitably is compromised. However, data to support claims on both the extent and the impact of migration in developing countries is patchy and often anecdotal, based on limited databases with highly inconsistent categories of education and skills. The aim of this paper is to examine some key issues related to the international migration of health workers in order to better understand its impact and to find entry points to developing policy options with which migration can be managed. The paper is divided into six sections. In the first, the different types of migration are reviewed. Some global trends are depicted in the second section. Scarcity of data on health worker migration is one major challenge and this is addressed in section three, which reviews and discusses different data sources. The consequences of health worker migration and the financial flows associated with it are presented in section four and five, respectively. To illustrate the main issues addressed in the previous sections, a case study based mainly on the United Kingdom is presented in section six. This section includes a discussion on policies and ends by addressing the policy options from a broader perspective.

Assessing capacity for health policy and systems research in low and middle income countries

Abstract: BACKGROUND: As demand grows for health policies based on evidence, questions exist as to the capacity of developing countries to produce the health policy and systems research (HPSR) required to meet this challenge. METHODS: A postal/web survey of 176 HPSR producer institutions in developing countries assessed institutional structure, capacity, critical mass, knowledge production processes and stakeholder engagement. Data were projected to an estimated population of 649 institutions. RESULTS: HPSR producers are mostly small public institutions/units with an average of 3 projects, 8 researchers and a project portfolio worth $155,226. Experience, attainment of critical mass and stakeholder engagement are low, with only 19% of researchers at PhD level, although researchers in key disciplines are well represented and better qualified. Research capacity and funding are similar across income regions, although inequalities are apparent. Only 7% of projects are funded at $100,000 or more, but they account for 54% of total funding. International sources and national governments account for 69% and 26% of direct project funding, respectively. A large proportion of international funds available for HPSR in support of developing countries are either not spent or spent through developed country institutions. CONCLUSIONS: HPSR producers need to increase their capacity and critical mass to engage effectively in policy development and to absorb a larger volume of resources. The relationship between funding and critical mass needs further research to identify the best funding support, incentives and capacity strengthening approaches. Support should be provided to network institutions, concentrate resources and to attract funding.

Globalization and Workers in Developing Countries

Abstract: Stories on the positive and negative effects of globalization on workers in developing countries abound. But a comprehensive picture is missing and many of the stories are ideologically charged. This paper reviews the academic literature on the subject, including several studies currently under way, and derives the implications for public policy. First, it deals with the effects of openness to trade, foreign direct investment, and financial crises on average wages. Second, it discusses the impact of exposure to world markets on the dispersion of wages by occupation, skill, and gender. Third, it describes the pattern of job destruction and job creation associated with globalization. Because these two processes are not synchronized, the fourth issue addressed is the impact on unemployment rates. Fifth, the paper reviews the labor market policies that can be used to offset the adverse effects of globalization on employment and labor earnings. Finally, it discusses how the international community could encourage developing countries to adopt sound labor market policies in the context of globalization. This paper - a product of Public Services, Development Research Group - is part of a larger effort in the group to assess the impact of labor market policies and institutions on economic performance.