Bøger i Elements in the Economics of Emerging Markets serien

The empirical literature on the contributions of human capital investments to economic growth shows mixed results. While evidence from OECD countries demonstrates that human capital accumulation is associated with growth accelerations, the substantial efforts of developing countries to improve access to and quality of education, as a means for skill accumulation, did not translate into higher income per capita. In this Element, we propose a framework, building on the principles of 'growth diagnostics', to enable practitioners to determine whether human capital investments are a priority for a country's growth strategy. We then discuss and exemplify different tests to diagnose human capital in a place, drawing on the Harvard Growth Lab's experience in different development context, and discuss various policy options to address skill shortages.

Sovereign Wealth Funds are government investment vehicles that have been present for decades. They are usually characterized by minimum information disclosure, however, this situation differed after worldwide events shed light on the role they possess to mitigate their downturns. The substantial economic influence they bring along due to their size and long term impact have recently created an uproar of debate that eventually led to the ratification of the Santiago Principles. The Principles set the stage for governing SWFs' operations and grant them more clarity. They also contribute to a more stable environment for cross-border investment flows. With the importance of SWFs, emerging economies also rose as key institutional investors; only this time they called for harnessing their funds towards sustainable development investment strategies. Despite pressuring need to improve transparency and governance structures of SWFs in EMs, the former are regarded as promising means for achieving the sustainable development goals.

This Element investigates how the Ghanaian household wealth index is impacted by travel time reduction, which is a direct effect of infrastructural investments from 2000 to 2016. The wealth index is constructed based on the possession of selected assets and reflects the well-being of residents in Ghana. The Element employs two datasets, the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and the DHS Covariates. The two-stage least square estimation is implemented to establish the causal relationship. The Element finds that a ten percent reduction in travel time from 2000 to 2015 would result in a 1.2 percent increase in the wealth index from 2003 to 2016. This finding is robust to various settings, including the addition of more control variables, the use of different instrumental variables, and the study of both short-term and long-term effects. The analysis lends support to the Ghanaian government's current economic and infrastructure development plans.

Emerging countries are increasingly concerned with improving their competitiveness and productivity. This Element develops a robust econometric methodology, based on controlling for usual unobservable effects at the firm or plant level.

This Element focuses on the specific role of financial conglomerates in managing banking and financial stability. The Element aims to estimate financial stability in CEE using the constructed aggregate financial stability index, to incorporate the financial stability of the parent company into the index, and to assess the effect of the parent company on the financial stability of commercial banks and national financial sectors.

China registered double-digit GDP growth for more than three decades. Recently, the rate has slowed down considerably. The slow growth period, which Chinese policymakers refer to as the 'new-normal', has created enormous curiosity among scholars and policymakers. In particular, scholars often tend to project if China is destined to follow Japan's fate. Insufficient reforms in the banking sector in commensuration with the real economy in Japan resulted in an unprecedented financial catastrophe. Similarly, an asymmetric development between the Chinese banking sector and the real economy is observed. This leads to an interesting question: is China destined to meet Japan's legacy? This Element attempts to answer this question. In so doing, it delves deep into the banking sector reforms of China. The Element concludes that China is not on course to meet an immediate financial chaos, but the country needs further banking reforms to avoid a potential crisis.

This Element goes far beyond economic theory. It will also be of interest to representatives of the environmental sciences due to its focus on the "e;green"e; economy and sustainable development. It will also be interesting to the representatives of the social sciences, as it takes into account the peculiarities of emerging market economies. Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic makes this Element interesting from a health economics perspective.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is reshaping the globe at a rate far quicker than earlier revolutions. It is also having a greater influence on society and industry. It is critical to comprehend this new era of technology since it will significantly alter life during the next several years in this age of technological advancement.

This Element outlines the characteristics of Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) digital markets, along with an additional contextual layer investigating online consumer behaviors. It wil analyze the opportunities presented by the digital economy in CEE and provide an actionable outlook for the e-commerce potential within the region's markets.

This Element focuses on Latin American fossil fuel producer countries and how they are dealing with the transition towards a greener energy matrix. The challenges involved are multiple and ethical in substance. To tackle all these problems, this Element profits from contributions of different disciplines.

The primary focus of this Element is to understand the rise of smart "e;social"e; infrastructures in BoP emerging markets like India. It has been observed that new focus areas and frontiers of global economy are taking shape where social and environmental outcomes along with economic performance are considered to be collective parameters for success or failure of the businesses. This has led to the emergence of new models of entrepreneurship namely for-profit social businesses. These new models are driven by problem-solving social innovators who are driven by the social and environmental mission besides economic gains. Sustainability and overall success of social businesses is driven by smart social infrastructure comprising availability of incubation ecosystem for social start-ups, access to patient capital, availability of digital ecosystem, adoption of circular business models, and focus on collaborations, partnerships and networking with diverse stakeholders.

Compares structural and Bayesian models to the random walk benchmark in forecasting exchange rates between South American currencies and the US Dollar, and between the Paraguayan Guarani, Brazilian Real and Argentinian Peso. Forecasts are evaluated using the criteria of Root Mean Square Error, Direction of Change, and the Diebold-Mariano statistic.

This Element provides a detailed overview of the structural changes in the Asia-Pacific region from the early 2000s onwards. It analyses cross-border interbank claims and liabilities, and evaluates the contagion risk to the individual countries spreading from the financial centres in Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, New York and London.

This Element provides a detailed analysis of official finances from China to Africa with special attention to the question of Africa's foreign finances policy. The findings reveal that Africa has an infrastructure gap and Chinese finances are largely used to fund infrastructure projects.