From flying Geese to leading Dragons : new opportunities and strategies for structural transformation in developing countries

Economic development is a process of continuous industrial and technological upgrading in which any country, regardless of its level of development, can succeed if it develops industries that are consistent with its comparative advantage, determined by its endowment structure. The secret winning formula for developing countries is to exploit the latecomer advantage by building up industries that are growing dynamically in more advanced fast growing countries that have endowment structures similar to theirs. By following carefully selected lead countries, latecomers can emulate the leader-follower, flying-geese pattern that has served well successfully catching-up economies since the 18th century. The emergence of large middle-income countries such as China, India, and Brazil as new growth poles in the world, and their dynamic growth and climbing of the industrial ladder, offer an unprecedented opportunity to all developing economies with income levels currently below theirs --including those in Sub-Saharan Africa. Having itself been a"follower goose,"China is on the verge of graduating from low-skilled manufacturing jobs and becoming a"leading dragon."That will free up nearly 100 million labor-intensive manufacturing jobs, enough to more than quadruple manufacturing employment in low-income countries. A similar trend is emerging in other middle-income growth poles. The lower-income countries that can formulate and implement a viable strategy to capture this new industrialization opportunity will set forth on a dynamic path of structural change that can lead to poverty reduction and prosperity.Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets,Achieving Shared Growth,Labor Policies,Inequality

The unexpected global financial crisis : researching its root cause

The world is currently still struggling with the aftermath of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Following a description of the eruption, evolution and consequences of the global crisis, this paper reviews alternative hypotheses for the causes of the global financial crisis as well as their empirical evidence. The paper refutes the frequently voiced view that the global crisis was caused by global imbalances that reflected economic policies of East Asian countries. Instead, it argues that global imbalances were the result of excess demand in the United States, resulting from both the public debt in the United States arising from the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars and tax cuts and the overconsumption by households supported by the wealth effect from the housing bubble in the United States. The housing bubble itself was the outcome of the Federal Reserve's low interest rate policy in the aftermath of the burst of the"dot-com"bubble in 2001, the lack of appropriate financial regulation, and housing policies aimed at expanding the mortgage market to low-income borrowers. It was possible to maintain the large trade deficits of the United States for such a long period of time because of the dollar's reserve currency status. When the housing bubble in the United States burst, the global crisis ensued. The paper also analyzes why China's trade surplus increased significantly in general and with the United States in particular in recent years, and argues that this increase was caused by both the relocation of the labor-intensive tradable sector of East Asian economies to China and high corporate saving rates in China as a result of its dual-track approach to reform.Debt Markets,Currencies and Exchange Rates,Emerging Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Access to Finance

The financial crisis and its impacts on global agriculture

The financial crisis arose in the industrial countries, but has affected developing countries through higher interest rates, sharp changes in commodity prices, and reductions in investment, trade, migration and remittances. For most low-income countries, shocks that affect food prices or wage rates for unskilled workers seem likely to have the largest impact on poverty, with the declines in key food prices associated with the crisis helping to reduce poverty, while declining trade, investment, and remittance flows have had adverse impacts on the poor. Policies to address the crisis must include measures to deal with financial sector problems, the resulting reductions in aggregate demand, and the particular vulnerabilities of poor people. Given the complexity of the impacts from financial crises and commodity price shocks, there is a strong case for developing better social safety net policies that can offset the adverse impacts of a wide range of different shocks on poor people without creating costly market distortions.Emerging Markets,Debt Markets,Economic Theory&Research,Markets and Market Access,Currencies and Exchange Rates

Deflationary Expansion : an Overshooting Perspective to the Recent Business Cycle in China

Deflationary expansion has puzzled economists both in and outside China. We study this business cycles phenomenon within a model of discrete time dynamics. We find that deflationary expansion could be possible if driven by an overshooting in investing and if the state of the economy maintains high rate of growth. This expression is consistent with the recent variables. The high steady state of growth could be explained by the current institutional environment of China.Deflationary Expansion, China, Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium, Business Fluctuations, monetary policy, Central Banking, Supply of Money and Credit

Development Strategy, Optimal Industrial Structure and Economic Growth in Less Developed Countries

In this paper, we develop an endogenous growth model that combines structural change with repeated product improvements. There are two sectors in the present paper, one is traditional sector, and the other is modern sector. The technological progress in the traditional sector takes the form of horizontal innovation based on expanding variety, while the technologies in the modern sector become not only increasingly capital-intensive but also progressively productive over time. The application of the basic model to the less developed economies show that the optimal industrial structure in the less developed countries (LDCs) is endogenously determined by its factor endowments; the firm in the LDCs that enters the capital-intensive, advanced industry in the developed countries (DCs) would be nonviable owing to the relative scarcity of capital in the LDCs factor endowments; whether the industrial structure matches with the factor endowment structure or not is the fundamental cause to explain differences in economic performance among the LDCs.Capital Intensity, Development Strategy, Factor Endowments, Endogenous Growth, Industrial Structure, productivity, technology, Viability

Applying the growth identification and facilitation framework : the case of Nigeria

This paper applies the Growth Identification and Facilitation Framework developed by Lin and Monga (2010) to Nigeria. It identifies as appropriate comparator countries China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam, and selects a wide range of industries in which these comparator countries may be losing their comparative advantage and which may therefore lend themselves to targeted interventions of the government to fast-track growth. These industries include food processing, light manufacturing, suitcases, shoes, car parts, and petrochemicals. The paper also discusses binding constraints to growth in each of these value chains as well as mechanisms through which governance-related issues in the implementation of industrial policy could be addressed.Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Transport Economics Policy&Planning,E-Business

Development Strategies and Regional Income Disparities in China

Since the economic reforms began in 1978, China has achieved remarkable economic results. Real GDP per capita grew at an average annual rate of 8.1% in the period of 1978-2001. Maintaining such a high growth rate over such a long period of time with a population of more than one billion truly is a miracle in world economy history (Lin et. al. 1994 and 1999).China, Regional income disparities, Income Distribution

Industrial structure, appropriate technology and economic growth in less developed countries

The authors develop an endogenous growth model that combines structural change with repeated product improvement. That is, the technologies in one sector of the model become not only increasingly capital-intensive, but also progressively productive over time. Application of the basic model to less developed economies shows that the (optimal) industrial structure and the (most) appropriate technologies in less developed economies are endogenously determined by their factor endowments. A firm in a less developed country that enters a capital-intensive, advanced industry in a developed country would be nonviable owing to the relative scarcity of capital in the factor endowments of less developed countries.Economic Theory&Research,Political Economy,Technology Industry,Economic Growth,Inequality

Development Strategies and Regional Income Disparities in China

economic development strategy, regional income disparities, viability, China, economy

Economic Development Strategy, Openness and Rural Poverty: A Framework and China's Experiences

economic development strategy, income distribution, globalization, poverty