Causes and Consequences of Income Inequality


Book Description

This paper analyzes the extent of income inequality from a global perspective, its drivers, and what to do about it. The drivers of inequality vary widely amongst countries, with some common drivers being the skill premium associated with technical change and globalization, weakening protection for labor, and lack of financial inclusion in developing countries. We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down. This suggests that policies need to be country specific but should focus on raising the income share of the poor, and ensuring there is no hollowing out of the middle class. To tackle inequality, financial inclusion is imperative in emerging and developing countries while in advanced economies, policies should focus on raising human capital and skills and making tax systems more progressive.




Transforming Economies


Book Description

This book helps connect the dots between economic theory, the role of capabilities, the lessons from history and the practical challenges of design and implementation of industrial policies. In so doing it provides an excellent policy roadmap for anyone interested in the challenge of promoting catch-up growth and productive transformation.




Income, Inequality, and Poverty During the Transition from Planned to Market Economy


Book Description

World Bank Technical Paper No. 394. Joint Forest Management (JFM) has emerged as an important intervention in the management of Indias forest resources. This report sets out an analytical method for examining the costs and benefits of JFM arrangements. Two pilot case studies in which the method was used demonstrate interesting outcomes regarding incentives for various groups to participate. The main objective of this study is to develop a better understanding of the incentives for communities to participate in JFM.




The Imperative of Development


Book Description

" The achievements and legacy of the Wolfensohn Center for Development at Brookings The Imperative of Development highlights the research and policy analysis produced by the Wolfensohn Center for Development at Brookings. The Center, which operated from 2006 to 2011, was the first home at Brookings for research on international development. It sought to help identify effective solutions to key development challenges in order to create a more prosperous and stable world. Founded by James and Elaine Wolfensohn, the Center’s mission was to “to create knowledge that leads to action with real, scaled-up, and lasting development impact.” This volume reviews the Center’s achievements and lasting legacy, combining highlights of its most important research with new essays that examine the context and impact of that research. Six primary research streams of the Wolfensohn Center’s work are highlighted in The Imperative of Development: the shifting structure of the world economy in the twenty-first century; the challenge of scaling up the impact of development interventions; the effectiveness of development assistance; how to promote economic and social inclusion for Middle Eastern youth; the case for investing in early child development; and the need for global governance reform. In each chapter, a scholar associated with the particular research topic provides an overview of the issue and its broader context, then describes the Center’s work on the topic and the subsequent influence and impact of these efforts. The Imperative of Development chronicles the growth and expansion of the first center for development research in Brookings’s 100-year history and traces how the seeds of this initiative continue to bear fruit. "




Industrial Policy for the Sustainable Development Goals Increasing the Private Sector’s Contribution


Book Description

How can governments support the private sector’s contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)? This book investigates the contribution of firms to the SDGs, particularly through their core business, taking into account inter-sectoral linkages and global value chains, using novel techniques and data sources.




Development and Modern Industrial Policy in Practice


Book Description

Development and Modern Industrial Policy in Practice provides an up-to-date analysis of industrial policy. Modern industrial policy refers to the set of actions and strategies used to favor the more dynamic sectors of the economy. A key aspect of moder




How Nations Succeed: Manufacturing, Trade, Industrial Policy, and Economic Development


Book Description

This book assesses developmental experience in different countries as well as British expansion following the industrial revolution from a developmental perspective. It explains why some nations are rich and others are poor, and discusses how manufacturing made economies flourish and spur economic development. It explains how today’s governments can design and implement industrial policy, and how they can determine economically strategic sectors to break out of Low and Middle Income Traps. Closely linked to global trade and (im)balances, industrialization was never an accident. Industrialization explains how some countries experience export-led growth and others import-led slowdowns. Many confuse industrialization with the construction of factory buildings rather than a capacity and skill building process through certain stages. Industrial policy helps countries advance through those stages. Explaining technical concepts in understandable terms, the book discusses the capacity and limits of the developmental state in industrialization and in general in economic development, demonstrating how picking-the-winner type focused industrial policy has worked in different countries. It also discusses how industrial policy and science, technology and innovation policies should be sequenced for best results.




Chinese Social Policy in a Time of Transition


Book Description

The story of China's spectacular economic growth is well known. Less well known is the country's equally dramatic, though not always equally successful, social policy transition. Between the mid- 1990s and mid-2000s---the focal period for this book---China's central government went a long way toward consolidating the social policy framework that had gradually emerged in piecemeal fashion during the initial phases of economic liberalization. Major policy decisions during the focal period included adopting a single national pension plan for urban areas, standardizing unemployment insurance, (re)establishing nationwide rural health care coverage, opening urban education systems to children of rural migrants, introducing trilingual education policies in ethnic minority regions, expanding college enrolment, addressing the challenge of HIV/AIDS more comprehensively, and equalizing social welfare spending across provinces, among others. Unresolved is the direction of policy in the face of longer-term industrial and demographic trends---and the possibility of a chronically weak global economy. Chinese Social Policy in a Time of Transition offers scholars, practitioners, students, and policymakers a foundation from which to explore those issues based on a composite snapshot of Chinese social policy at its point of greatest maturation prior to the 2007 global crisis.




Evolving Monetary Policy Frameworks in Low-Income and Other Developing Countries


Book Description

Over the past two decades, many low- and lower-middle income countries (LLMICs) have improved control over fiscal policy, liberalized and deepened financial markets, and stabilized inflation at moderate levels. Monetary policy frameworks that have helped achieve these ends are being challenged by continued financial development and increased exposure to global capital markets. Many policymakers aspire to move beyond the basics of stability to implement monetary policy frameworks that better anchor inflation and promote macroeconomic stability and growth. Many of these LLMICs are thus considering and implementing improvements to their monetary policy frameworks. The recent successes of some LLMICs and the experiences of emerging and advanced economies, both early in their policy modernization process and following the global financial crisis, are valuable in identifying desirable features of such frameworks. This paper draws on those lessons to provide guidance on key elements of effective monetary policy frameworks for LLMICs.




The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Policy


Book Description

Industrial policy has long been regarded as a strategy to encourage sector-, industry-, or economy-wide development by the state. It has been central to competitiveness, catching up, and structural change in both advanced and developing countries. It has also been one of the most contested perspectives, reflecting ideologically inflected debates and shifts in prevailing ideas. There has lately been a renewed interest in industrial policy in academic circles and international policy dialogues, prompted by the weak outcomes of policies pursued by many developing countries under the direction of the Washington Consensus (and its descendants), the slow economic recovery of many advanced economies after the 2008 global financial crisis, and mounting anxieties about the national consequences of globalization. The Oxford Handbook of Industrial Policy presents a comprehensive review of and a novel approach to the conceptual and theoretical foundations of industrial policy. The Handbook also presents analytical perspectives on how industrial policy connects to broader issues of development strategy, macro-economic policies, infrastructure development, human capital, and political economy. By combining historical and theoretical perspectives, and integrating conceptual issues with empirical evidence drawn from advanced, emerging, and developing countries, The Handbook offers valuable lessons and policy insights to policymakers, practitioners and researchers on developing productive transformation, technological capabilities, and international competitiveness. It addresses pressing issues including climate change, the gendered dimensions of industrial policy, global governance, and technical change. Written by leading international thinkers on the subject, the volume pulls together different perspectives and schools of thought from neo-classical to structuralist development economists to discuss and highlight the adaptation of industrial policy in an ever-changing socio-economic and political landscape.