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For almost as long as economics has been a profession, the role of
natural resources in the promotion of economic growth has been
among the core issues of development theory. Some newer theories
suggest that natural riches produce institutional weaknesses as
various social groups attempt to capture the economic rents derived
from the exploitation of natural resources. Since the 1960s, some
analysts have argued that resource-rich developing countries have
grown more slowly than other developing countries. Nevertheless, we
find ourselves in a time when conventional wisdom again postulates
that natural resources are indeed riches.
This book brings together a variety of analytical perspectives,
ranging from econometric analyses of economic growth to historical
studies of successful development experiences in countries with
abundant natural resources. The evidence suggests that natural
resources are neither a curse nor destiny. Natural resources can
actually spur economic development when combined with the
accumulation of knowledge for economic innovation. Furthermore,
natural resource abundance need not be the only determinant of the
structure of trade in developing countries. In fact, the
accumulation of knowledge, infrastructure, and the quality of
governance all seem to determine not only what countries produce
and export, but how firms and workers produce any good.
For almost as long as economics has been a profession, the role of
natural resources in the promotion of economic growth has been
among the core issues of development theory. Some newer theories
suggest that natural riches produce institutional weaknesses as
various social groups attempt to capture the economic rents derived
from the exploitation of natural resources. Since the 1960s, some
analysts have argued that resource-rich developing countries have
grown more slowly than other developing countries. Nevertheless, we
find ourselves in a time when conventional wisdom again postulates
that natural resources are indeed riches.
This book brings together a variety of analytical perspectives,
ranging from econometric analyses of economic growth to historical
studies of successful development experiences in countries with
abundant natural resources. The evidence suggests that natural
resources are neither a curse nor destiny. Natural resources can
actually spur economic development when combined with the
accumulation of knowledge for economic innovation. Furthermore,
natural resource abundance need not be the only determinant of the
structure of trade in developing countries. In fact, the
accumulation of knowledge, infrastructure, and the quality of
governance all seem to determine not only what countries produce
and export, but how firms and workers produce any good.
"Lederman, Maloney, and Serven offer an excellent empirical
investigation into the impacts of the North America Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) on the Mexican economy. . . . The authors pay
close attention to the experiences of other Latin American
countries and the European Union while avoiding ideological
debates." -- CHOICE
" Lessons from NAFTA" is important perhaps less for what it tells
us about changes under a free-trade agreement and more for its
nuanced and careful empirical investigation of how trade can
actually make people better off. This, indeed, is the ' big story'
of NAFTA and the potential for free trade agreements in the
region." -- Political Science Quarterly"
"Lederman, Maloney, and Serven offer an excellent empirical
investigation into the impacts of the North America Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) on the Mexican economy. . . . The authors pay
close attention to the experiences of other Latin American
countries and the European Union while avoiding ideological
debates." -- CHOICE
" Lessons from NAFTA" is important perhaps less for what it tells
us about changes under a free-trade agreement and more for its
nuanced and careful empirical investigation of how trade can
actually make people better off. This, indeed, is the ' big story'
of NAFTA and the potential for free trade agreements in the
region." -- Political Science Quarterly"
Economists have long argued that developing countries have the
potential for high productivity growth if they adopt existing
technologies and apply them to the local context. This report
brings to bear a battery of new data sources to explore the
innovation ""paradox"": despite the potential for very high
returns, developing countries invest far less in adopting and
inventing new processes and products than advanced countries. The
report posits three broad factors underlying this paradox. The
first is that firms in developing countries lack the managerial and
technological capabilities to undertake meaningful innovation
projects. This implies that conventional innovation policies are
unlikely to be effective, and moving firms up the ""capabilities
escalator"" becomes central. A second factor is that firm
capability is only one of many critical ingredients - for instance,
access to financial markets, macroeconomic stability, and imported
machinery - that are complements to the innovation process, and
whose absence lowers the return to innovation in developing
countries. This implies that cultivating an effective innovation
system will be a greater policy challenge, and that standard
measures of innovation performance, such as research and
development or GDP, are misleading. Finally, government
capabilities required to redress these two points are also
correspondingly weaker in developing countries, so building these
capabilities needs to be explicitly integrated in formulating
innovation policy.
The stagnation of productivity in the developing world, and indeed,
across the globe, over the last two decades dictates a rethinking
of productivity measurement, analysis, and policy. Reviving Global
Productivity presents a "second wave" of thinking in three key
areas of productivity analysis and its implications for
productivity policies. The volume calls into question the
measurement and relevance of distortions as the primary barrier to
productivity growth, urges a broader concept of firm performance
that goes beyond efficiency to quality upgrading and demand
expansion, and explores what it takes to generate an experimental
and innovative society where entrepreneurs have the personal
characteristics to identify new technologies and manage risk within
an entrepreneurial ecosystem that facilitates their doing so. It
also reviews arguments surrounding industrial policies. The authors
argue for an integrated approach to productivity analysis that
incorporates both the need to reduce economic distortions and
generate the human capital capable of identifying the opportunities
offered to follower countries and upgrade firm capabilities.
Finally, it offers guidance on prioritizing policies when there is
uncertainty around diagnostics and limited government capability.
Informality: Exit and Exclusion analyzes informality in Latin
America, exploring root causes and reasons for and implications of
its growth. The authors use two distinct but complementary lenses:
informality driven by ""exclusion"" from state benefits or the
circuits of the modern economy, and driven by voluntary ""exit""
decisions resulting from private cost-benefit calculations that
lead workers and firms to opt out of formal institutions. They find
both lenses have considerable explanatory power to understand the
causes and consequences of informality in the region.""Informality:
Exit and Exclusion"" concludes that reducing informality levels and
overcoming the ""culture of informality"" will require actions to
increase aggregate productivity in the economy, reform poorly
designed regulations and social policies, and increase the
legitimacy of the state by improving the quality and fairness of
state institutions and policies. Although the study focuses on
Latin America, its analysis, approach, and conclusions are relevant
for all developing countries."" Informality: Exit and Exclusion""
will be of value to professionals and academics studying labor
market, social protection, tax, microenterprise development, and
urban public policies, and to those working in government,
international organizations, research institutions, and
universities.
That raising income levels alleviates poverty, and that economic
growth can be more or less effective in doing so, is well known and
has received renewed attention in the search for pro-poor growth.
What is less well explored is the reverse channel: that poverty
may, in fact, be part of the reason for a country's poor growth
performance. This more elaborated view of the development process
opens the door to the existence of vicious circles in which low
growth results in high poverty and high poverty in turn results in
low growth. 'Poverty Reduction and Growth' is about the existence
of these vicious circles in Latin America and the Caribbean about
the ways and means to convert them into virtuous circles in which
poverty reduction and high growth reinforce each other. Through its
analysis of fresh data and the attention it pays to issues such as
the persistent inequality in the region, the role played by various
microdeterminants of income, and the potential existence of human
capital underinvestment traps, this title should be a valuable
contribution to the current regional debate on poverty and growth,
a debate that is critical to the design of policies conducive to
enhancing welfare in all is dimensions among the poor of Latin
America and the Caribbean.
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