Technology and Institutions in the Process of Economic Reform
Technology and Institutions in the Process of Economic Reform

Author: John Q. Adams

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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The prime premise in Clarence Ayres's Theory of Economic Progress (1962; c1944) is that the pace of advance in a society is driven by cumulative technological evolution. Technology is not tools alone, but encompasses irreducibly the human skills and ideas necessary to make and use tools for instrumental purposes. Technological progress depends on the flexibility of the counterpart institutional setting. The degree of institutional resistance or opposition inheres in five ceremonial features: social stratification, a system of conventions or mores, the potency of magical beliefs or ideology, the emotional conditioning of socialization, and the mystical rites and ceremonies that codify and intensify the institutional patterns of behavior (Ayres 1962, viii). In his most celebrated phrase, Ayres wrote, "Thus what happens to any society is determined jointly by the forward urging of its technology and the backward pressure of its ceremonial system" (Ayres 1962, ix). Surprisingly, his challenging thesis has rarely been applied as an overarching framework to guide practical development policy work in sectors at the country level. This field report sketches Nepal's economic conditions, explains the motivation for forwarding information technologies in the context of financial sector reforms, and identifies the founts of institutional resistance to their adoption. To date, these institutional obstructions have remained sufficiently powerful to slow to a crawl the pace of technological innovation in Nepal's financial sector.

The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China
The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China

Author: Susan L. Shirk

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-04-28

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 0520912217

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In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chinese communist political institutions are more flexible and less centralized than their Soviet counterparts were. Shirk pioneers a rational choice institutional approach to analyze policy-making in a non-democratic authoritarian country and to explain the history of Chinese market reforms from 1979 to the present. Drawing on extensive interviews with high-level Chinese officials, she pieces together detailed histories of economic reform policy decisions and shows how the political logic of Chinese communist institutions shaped those decisions. Combining theoretical ambition with the flavor of on-the-ground policy-making in Beijing, this book is a major contribution to the study of reform in China and other communist countries. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1994. In the past decade, China was able to carry out economic reform without political reform, while the Soviet Union attempted the opposite strategy. How did China succeed at economic market reform without changing communist rule? Susan Shirk shows that Chine

Structural Reforms, Productivity and Technological Change in Latin America
Structural Reforms, Productivity and Technological Change in Latin America

Author: Jorge M. Katz

Publisher: United Nations Publications

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13:

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In the last ten to fifteen years, profound structural reforms have moved Latin America and the Caribbean from closed, state-dominated economies to ones that are more market-oriented and open. Policymakers expected that these changes would speed up growth. This book is part of a multi-year project to determine whether these expectation have been fulfilled. Focusing on technological change, the impact of the reforms on the process of innovation is examined. It notes that the development process is proving to be highly heterogenous across industries, regions and firms and can be described as strongly inequitable. This differentiation that has emerged has implications for job creation, trade balance, and the role of small and medium sized firms. This ultimately suggests, amongst other things, the need for policies to better spread the use of new technologies.

United States Foreign Policy and Economic Reform in Three Giants
United States Foreign Policy and Economic Reform in Three Giants

Author: John Echeverri-Gent

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-28

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1351317024

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Three of the largest and strategically most important nations in the world -the Soviet Union, China, and India - are currently in the throes of historic change. The reforms in the giants are transforming global economic and geopolitical relations. The United States must reexamine central tenets of its foreign policy if it is to seize the opportunities presented by these changes.This pathbreaking volume in the Overseas Development Council's series analyzes economic reform in the giants and its implications for U.S. foreign policy. Each of the giants is opening up its economy to foreign trade and investment. What consequences will this have for international trade? Each giant is attempting to catch up to global technological frontiers by absorbing foreign technologies: In what areas might cooperation enhance American interests, and in what areas must the U.S. protect its competitive and strategic assets? What role can key international economic institutions play to help integrate the giants into the international economy? The contributors suggest how U.S. foreign policy should anticipate these new circumstances in ways that enhance international cooperation and security.Contents: Overview: Economic Reform in the Giants and U.S. Policy, by Richard E. Feinberg, John Echeverri-Gent, and Friedemann Miiller; Economic Reform in the USSR, by Friedemann Miiller; Economic Reform in China, by Rensselaer W. Lee III; Economic Reform in India, by John Echeverri-Gent; The Politics of Economic Reform in the Giants, by John Echeverri-Gent, and Friedemann Miiller; Economic Reforms and International Trade, by Thomas Naylor; Technology Transfer to the Giants: Opportunities and Challenges, by Richard P. Suttmeier; and The Geopolitical Consequences of Reform in the Giants, by Elena Borisovna Arefieva.

Understanding the Process of Economic Change
Understanding the Process of Economic Change

Author: Douglass C. North

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-05-09

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 0691145954

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In this landmark work, a Nobel Prize-winning economist develops a new way of understanding the process by which economies change. Douglass North inspired a revolution in economic history a generation ago by demonstrating that economic performance is determined largely by the kind and quality of institutions that support markets. As he showed in two now classic books that inspired the New Institutional Economics (today a subfield of economics), property rights and transaction costs are fundamental determinants. Here, North explains how different societies arrive at the institutional infrastructure that greatly determines their economic trajectories. North argues that economic change depends largely on "adaptive efficiency," a society's effectiveness in creating institutions that are productive, stable, fair, and broadly accepted--and, importantly, flexible enough to be changed or replaced in response to political and economic feedback. While adhering to his earlier definition of institutions as the formal and informal rules that constrain human economic behavior, he extends his analysis to explore the deeper determinants of how these rules evolve and how economies change. Drawing on recent work by psychologists, he identifies intentionality as the crucial variable and proceeds to demonstrate how intentionality emerges as the product of social learning and how it then shapes the economy's institutional foundations and thus its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. Understanding the Process of Economic Change accounts not only for past institutional change but also for the diverse performance of present-day economies. This major work is therefore also an essential guide to improving the performance of developing countries.

Innovation, Economic Change and Technology Policies
Innovation, Economic Change and Technology Policies

Author: STROETMANN

Publisher: Birkhäuser

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 3034858671

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Technological progress is a major factor chaping economic growth. Today's standard of living is a direct result of scientific advances and technical change in the past. Since uncontrolled technological progress has become amenace to our well being and may actually threat our survival, it is necessary to learn to manage technological progress and direct innovative activities in such a manner that both private wants and social needs playa dominant role in determining the rate and direction of technical change. This requires a better understanding of the processes of technical change, of their impact on and interrelationships with economic and social developments and of the means and measures by which both individuals and governments can influence and direct technological progress. To this end, the Ninistry for Research and Technology of the Federal Republ ic of Germany and the National Science Foundation of the Uni ted States of America invited a group of scholars, corporate managers and civil servants to a one week seminar on "Technolo gical Innovation". The seminar took place in April, 1976, in Bonn, Federal Republ ic of Germany. Most papers presented at this meeting were specifically prepared for the seminar. With this volume, they are made available to a larger audience to further stimulate discussion not only among scholars interested in innovation research and technology policy questions but also among managers, union officials, civil ser vants and others directly or indirectly concerned with and affected by technical change.

India Transformed
India Transformed

Author: Rakesh Mohan

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2018-09-25

Total Pages: 704

ISBN-13: 0815736622

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In this commemorative volume, India's top business leaders and economic luminaries come together to provide a balanced picture of the consequences of the country’s economic reforms, which were initiated in 1991. What were the reforms? What were they intended for? How have they affected the overall functioning of the economy? With contributions from Mukesh Ambani, Narayana Murthy, Sunil Mittal, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Shivshankar Menon, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, T.N. Ninan, Sanjaya Baru, Naushad Forbes, Omkar Goswami and R. Gopalakrishnan, India Transformed delves deep into the life of an economically liberalized India through the eyes of the people who helped transform it.

Economic Reforms and Technological Development
Economic Reforms and Technological Development

Author: S. Giriappa

Publisher: Daya Books

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9788170351931

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Worldover, economic reforms have transformed the countries into strongholds of oligopolistic economic and political systems such that corporatisation and globalisation have become the catchwords of development. India too, has its share in shaping the structure of reforms in many fields with varying results. The recent liberalisation policy has its impact on technology, society and polity. To be globally competitive, corporatisation has been the major avenue through which many multinationals also spread their wings. The book deals with various aspects of economic reforms scenarios and the state-of-the-art built in stabilisers and future avenues for development. The issues covered include biotechnology, industrial technology, energy and environment, R & D institutions, organic farming, telecommunications, banking, agricultural research and construction. It is hoped this initiative in presenting a thematic prelude for rationalising reforms in the global setting would encourage many more analyses to come in various fields. The volume would be of interest to policy analysts, administrators, researchers and the general reader as well. Contents Chapter 1: Introduction by S Giriappa; Chapter 2: Impact of Economic Liberalisation on Science and Technology in India by M Abdul Rahiman; Chapter 3: Science, Technology and Economic Reforms: An Ecological and Ethical Perspective by H M Desarda; Chapter 4: Organic Farming: A Sustainable Approach by G K Veeresh; Chapter 5: Impact of Economic Reforms on Science and Technology for Agriculture by Sivam Varadarajan; Chapter 6: Planning for Sustainable Development of Agriculture: Some Leading Issue for Thinking and Action by G V Joshi; Chapter 7: Global Coffee Marketing and India s R & D Efforts by M Indira; Chapter 8: Socio-economic Impact of Coastal Aquaculture in Karnataka by Ramachandra Bhatta and Mahadev G Bhat; Chapter 9: Process of Industrialisation, Economic Reforms and Energy Planning in India by B Satyanarayan; Chapter 10: Impact of Economic Reforms on Industrial Operations and Environment Management by G R Krishna; Chapter 11: Environmental Impact of Scienceand Technology Issues in Libralised Economy by T S Channesh; Chapter 12: Economic Reforms and Ecotechnological Development by M N Madhyastha; Chapter 13: Economic Liberalisation and Social Responsibility of Multinational Corporations by K V M Varambally; Chapter 14: International Transfer of Technology in the Wake of Liberalisation by Vasant Gumaste; Chapter 15: Economic Reforms and Industrial Entrepreneurship Development in India by Odeyar D Heggade; Chapter 16: Technological Advancement and Impact of Research and Development of India Productive Sectors by S Divakara Shetty and H Rajarama Hande; Chapter 17: Indian Telecoms: Role and Impact of Economic Reforms by J Rajeswar Rao; Chapter 18: Financial Engineering: An Analysis of Its Products by T Mallikarjunappa; Chapter 19: Low Cost Materials for Housing by S Seetharaman and Mohandas Chadaga; Chapter 20: Economic Reforms and Rural Development: An Imperative Need for Collective Participation by K P Sripathi; Chapter 21: Science, Society and Technology by S Giriappa.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Author: Klaus Schwab

Publisher: Currency

Published: 2017-01-03

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1524758876

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World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolu­tion, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wear­able sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manu­facturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individu­als. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frame­works that advance progress.