For those wishing to acquire knowledge on national development issues, this comprehensive compendium traverses a spectrum of subjects that the audience ought to be well acquainted with. The Editors provide instructive findings regarding national development, economic growth and their determinants, but they also offer historical perspectives on the subject and the implications for developing countries. The book addresses a suite of critical themes regarded by development experts to be germane in considering the pertinence of policies and their effective execution. These seven general thematic areas are explored: • Leadership, governance, policy and strategy • Public sector and public financial management • Culture, institutions and people • Natural resources • Science, technology and infrastructure • Private sector and financial markets • Marketing, branding and service delivery This thematic approach enables the contributors to explore the impact of the constituents of each subject area on national development, within the context of a developing economy. The significance of the findings for the relevant stakeholders is consequently reviewed. The combination of theory and practice makes the book and its contents unique.
The efficiency of investment is as important as the level of investment in determining growth performance. Policies that make investment more efficient and reduce distortions in resource allocation generally encourage growth.
Evidence indicates that actions within four main themes (early child development fair employment and decent work social protection and the living environment) are likely to have the greatest impact on the social determinants of health and health inequities. A systematic search and analysis of recommendations and policy guidelines from intergovernmental organizations and international bodies identified practical policy options for action on social determinants within these four themes. Policy options focused on early childhood education and care; child poverty; investment strategies for an inclusive economy; active labour market programmes; working conditions; social cash transfers; affordable housing; and planning and regulatory mechanisms to improve air quality and mitigate climate change. Applying combinations of these policy options alongside effective governance for health equity should enable WHO European Region Member States to reduce health inequities and synergize efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Economics - Economic Cycle and Growth, grade: 1,7, University of Paderborn (Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Business Computing ), course: Research and Independent Studies in International Economics, 71 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The aim of this term paper is to find out what causes economic growth through analyzing determinants of growth in general and of regional growth, both in theory and evidence. The question why some countries grow significantly slower than others has been discussed intensively over the last decades. By thorough study of literature the main determinants will be indicated and similarities and differences between general and regional growth become visible. After a short introduction, in the second chapter the main growth determinants will be presented individually for the general and the regional area, each time also an introduction to the extensive literature (theory and empirics) of the specific area will be given beforehand. In the last chapter a conclusion will be drawn and an answer given to the question on which are the key determinants by comparing them with each other and in how far the results do distinguish on general and regional level.
The rate of long-term economic growth is the salient measure of the nation's ability to steadily advance its material living standard. The pace of long-term economic growth is likely to be a center of attention in the decades just ahead, as the U.S. economy confronts the need to undertake unprecedentedly large generational transfers of income to pay for the retirement of the huge baby-boom generation as well as large transfers of the rest of the world to meet the debt service costs of the United States' large and still growing foreign debt. For the United States, the long-term growth of real GDP per-capita over the last 125 years has revealed remarkable steadiness, advancing decade after decade with only modest and temporary variation from a trend annual average rate of growth of 1.8%. Overall, the limited variability of the rate of U.S. long-term growth, despite major changes in economic conditions, as well as economic and social policies, suggests that U.S. long-term growth may be governed by forces other than typical economic variables and may not be easy to alter with conventional economic policy. Nevertheless, the evidence of some degree of medium-term variability suggests the possibility of using economic policy to exert some influence. It is important to recognize that even relatively small differences in the rate of economic growth will steadily cumulate to have large effects on the scale of improvement in future living standards. Such an improvement would make the burden of future transfers on workers less onerous. Given a supporting social infrastructure that encourages and enables production of goods and services, economic theory and evidence make it reasonably clear that countries that have achieved sustained long-term growth such as the United States are those that invest a sizable fraction of current income in the accumulation of physical and human capital and have and continue to accumulate large stocks of both. As importantly, they are also economies that have been able to steadily raise the productivity of these two inputs through a steady advance of technical knowledge. There are reasons to believe, despite its evident economic success, that the United States, due to varying degrees of market failure, may under invest in each of the three determinants of economic growth. In theory, correcting that under investment through some form of government intervention could lead to an optimal increase in the rate of accumulation of each determinant, and through that to an acceleration of the economy's rate of economic growth. Knowing that there is the potential for improving on certain market outcomes in one thing. Designing economic policies that will efficiently induce these improvements is another thing. The information shortcoming about what, where, and how much to invest with which the policymaker would have to contend will often be substantial, and greatly raises the risk that the policy will be so bunt and misdirected that it will generate more economic costs than benefits.
The aim of this paper is to provide new estimates of employment-output elasticities and assess the effect of structural and macroeocnomic policies on the employment-intensity of growth. Using an unbalanced panel of 167 countries over the period 1991 - 2009, the results suggest that structural policies aimed at increasing labor and product market flexibility and reducing government size have a significant and positive impact on employment elasticities. In addition, the results also suggest that in order to maximize the positive impact on the responsiveness of employment to economic activity, structural policies have to be complemented with macroeconomic policies aimed at increasing macroeconomic stability.
