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.

Structural Reforms, Technological Gaps and Economic Development
Structural Reforms, Technological Gaps and Economic Development

Author: Mario Cimoli

Publisher: Santiago, Chile : United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Division of Production, Productivity and Management

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 56

ISBN-13:

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This publication develops a simple appreciative model, which explores some of the issues faced by structural reforms, technological gaps and economic development in Latin America. The first section introduces the issues and provides an overview of the publication. Section two introduces a brief view as to how the evolutionary approach should be adapted to analyze the impact of recent structural reforms upon the specialization pattern and technological capabilities accumulated in so called developing economies. Section three provides a simple macro-to-micro model of the stabilization cum structural reform process. Sections four and five are devoted to investigating recent changes in the pattern of production specialization of the Latin American economies and the relationship such changes have with the exit and entry of firms.

Structural Reforms and Economic Performance in Advanced and Developing Countries
Structural Reforms and Economic Performance in Advanced and Developing Countries

Author: Mr.Jonathan David Ostry

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2009-10-15

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13: 1589068181

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This volume examines the impact on economic performance of structural policies-policies that increase the role of market forces and competition in the economy, while maintaining appropriate regulatory frameworks. The results reflect a new dataset covering reforms of domestic product markets, international trade, the domestic financial sector, and the external capital account, in 91 developed and developing countries. Among the key results of this study, the authors find that real and financial reforms (and, in particular, domestic financial liberalization, trade liberalization, and agricultural liberalization) boost income growth. However, growth effects differ significantly across alternative reform sequencing strategies: a trade-before-capital-account strategy achieves better outcomes than the reverse, or even than a "big bang"; also, liberalizing the domestic financial sector together with the external capital account is growth-enhancing, provided the economy is relatively open to international trade. Finally, relatively liberalized domestic financial sectors enhance the economy's resilience, reducing output costs from adverse terms-of-trade and interest-rate shocks; increased credit availability is one of the key mechanisms.

Beyond Reforms
Beyond Reforms

Author: José Antonio Ocampo

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780804752732

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This collection presents the difficult challenges of the new economic era as well as a set of alternative economic policies for managing the open Latin American economies of the early twenty-first century. Ideas that were removed from the reform agenda over the past two decades are seen as critical to the improved economic and social performance that liberalization has so far failed to produce. These ideas include a role for counter-cyclical macroeconomic policies, including restrictions on capital mobility; active productive sector and technological development policies; and the need to pay greater attention not only to social policies, but also to the links between economic policies and social outcomes, in order to guarantee a desirable social performance. This collection sheds new light on issues that were largely overlooked during the reform period, and that must be faced squarely to overcome the deficiencies that Latin America has faced during its phase of liberalization and its dismal economic performance since the Asian crisis.

New Perspectives on Structural Change
New Perspectives on Structural Change

Author: Ludovico Alcorta

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021-03-23

Total Pages: 688

ISBN-13: 0192590375

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New Perspectives on Structural Change is a comprehensive edited volume that outlines both the historical roots and state-of-the-art debates on the role of structural change in the process of economic development, including both orthodox and heterodox perspectives and contributions from prominent scholars in this field. The volume consists of four main sections. The first section covers the theoretical foundations of the structural change literature. The second section presents an empirical overview of the major trends of structural change, using up-to-date data sources and methods. The third section presents a broad ranging empirical analysis of the drivers of structural change. The fourth section examines how processes such as inclusive growth, poverty reduction, productive employment, the global income distribution, and environmental sustainability are affected by structural change, and how they can be influenced by policy.

Structural Reforms and Firms’ Productivity: Evidence from Developing Countries
Structural Reforms and Firms’ Productivity: Evidence from Developing Countries

Author: Wilfried A. Kouamé

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2018-03-19

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13: 1484347005

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This paper assesses the effects of structural reforms on firm-level productivity for 37 developing countries from 2006 to 2014 period. It takes advantage of the IMF Monitoring of Fund Arrangements dataset for reform indexes and the World Bank Enterprise Surveys for firm-level productivity. The paper highlights the following results. Structural reforms such as financial, fiscal, real sector, and trade reforms, significantly improve firm-level productivity. Interestingly, real sector reforms have the most sizeable effects on firm-level productivity. The relationship between structural reforms and firm-level productivity is nonlinear and shaped by some firms’ characteristics such as the financial access, the distortionary environment, and the size of firms. The pace of structural reforms matters since being a “strong reformer” is associated with a clear productivity dividend for firms. Finally, except for financial and trade reforms, all structural reforms under consideration are bilaterally complementary in improving firm-level productivity. These findings are robust to several sensitivity checks.

Growth and Structural Transformation
Growth and Structural Transformation

Author: Kwang Suk Kim

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2020-03-17

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1684172195

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This study provides a comprehensive overview of Korea’s macroeconomic growth and structural change since World War II, and traces some of the roots of development to the colonial period. The authors explore in detail colonial development, changing national income patterns, relative price shifts, sources of aggregate growth, and sources of sectoral structural change, comparing them with other countries.

Growth in a Time of Change
Growth in a Time of Change

Author: Hyeon-Wook Kim

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0815737769

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Growth in a Time of Change: Global and Country Perspectives on a New Agenda is the first of a two-book research project that addresses new issues and challenges for economic growth arising from ongoing significant change in the world economy, focusing especially on technological transformation. The project is a collaboration between the Brookings Institution and the Korea Development Institute. Part I of the book looks at key elements of change from a global perspective. It analyzes how technological change, shifts in investment, and demographic transition are affecting potential economic growth globally and across major groups of economies. The contributors explore possible scenarios for the global economy as the digital revolution drives rapid technological change, including impacts on growth, jobs, income distribution, trade balances, and capital flows. Technology is changing the global configuration of comparative advantage and globalization increasingly has a digital dimension. The implications of these developments for the future of sectors such as manufacturing and for international trade are assessed. Part II of the book addresses new issues in the growth agenda from the perspective of an individual major economy: South Korea. The chapters in this section analyze how macroeconomic developments and technological change are influencing the behavior of households and firms in terms of their decisions to consume, save, and invest. Rising income and wealth inequalities are a major concern globally. Against this backdrop, trends in the labor income share and wage inequalities in South Korea are analyzed in terms of the role played by technology, industrial concentration, shifts in labor demand and supply, and other factors. Throughout the book, the contributors, in their analysis of both global and Korea-specific trends and prospects, place emphasis on drawing implications for policy.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Author: Klaus Schwab

Publisher: Crown Currency

Published: 2017-01-03

Total Pages: 194

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.