Bøger i Directions in Development serien

While adoption of new technologies is understood to enhance long-term growth and average per-capita incomes, its impact on lower-skilled workers is more complex and merits clarification. Concerns abound that advanced technologies developed in high-income countries would inexorably lead to job losses of lower-skilled, less well-off workers and exacerbate inequality. Conversely, there are countervailing concerns that policies intended to protect jobs from technology advancement would themselves stultify progress and depress productivity. This book squarely addresses both sets of concerns with new research showing that adoption of digital technologies offers a pathway to more inclusive growth by increasing adopting firms' outputs, with the jobs-enhancing impact of technology adoption assisted by growth-enhancing policies that foster sizable output expansion. The research reported here demonstrates with economic theory and data from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico that lower-skilled workers can benefit from adoption of productivity-enhancing technologies biased towards skilled workers, and often do. The inclusive jobs outcomes arise when the effects of increased productivity and expanding output overcome the substitution of workers for technology. While the substitution effect replaces some lower-skilled workers with new technology and more highly-skilled labor, the output effect can lead to an increase in the total number of jobs for less-skilled workers. Critically, output can increase sufficiently to increase jobs across all tasks and skill types within adopting firms, including jobs for lower-skilled workers, as long as lower-skilled task content remains complementary to new technologies and related occupations are not completely automated and replaced by machines. It is this channel for inclusive growth that underlies the power of pro-competitive enabling policies and institutions--such as regulations encouraging firms to compete and policies supporting the development of skills that technology augments rather than replaces--to ensure that the positive impact of technology adoption on productivity and lower-skilled workers is realized.

Getting to Work: Unlocking Women''s Potential in Sri Lanka''s Labor Force

Drawing from vast international experiences, this report examines how global cutting-edge technology like electric vehicles could be pursued in Bhutan with different socioeconomic characteristics from advanced economies.

Using new firm-level export data collected in eight MENA countries - Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen - this study provides a finer and deeper diagnostic for the region's lack of export growth and diversification.

Moving towards universal access to financial services is within reach - thanks to new technologies, transformative business models and ambitious reforms. Such instruments as e-money accounts, along with debit cards and low-cost regular bank accounts, can significantly increase financial access for those who are now excluded. The purpose of this publication is to learn the lessons of success from 4 country case studies of "Gazelles" - Kenya, Thailand, Sri Lanka and South Africa - that have transformed the landscape of financial access to the poor by successfully enabling the deployment of e-money technology. 2 country case studies (Philippines and Maldives) yield lessons learned from constraints that stalled e-money deployments. Because Technology is not a silver bullet, the case studies explore "What are the other strategic elements that need to be in place in order for a country to guide increased financial access through digital technology?"

Do current stylized facts about African agriculture and rural livelihoods reflect reality? In rapidly-changing and data-scarce environments they risk being outdated and misleading. This report re-examines conventional wisdom about African farmers, from the bottom up and recognising the complexities involved.

News and money today travel fast, but in Central Asia the bulk of people and goods still travel by road. Hence, the main roads crisscrossing this vast region and related services are arteries supporting the life and activities of millions of people today.