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Numerous papers have shown that developing economies are more volatile. We show that, despite greater aggregate and industry stability, performance and size of individual firms in developed countries are more volatile. In developing countries, market imperfections insulate incumbent firms from competition. Consistent with this, firms in developing countries have higher profit, higher market concentration, and less capital raising. Cross-country differences in operating risk and competition intensity are greater in industries that are dependent on external finance, where we expect higher impacts of capital-market imperfections. We show the inverse relation between aggregate and firm-level volatilities has important implications for international studies of cash holding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the role of country characteristics on the competition-governance relation. We find that competition is associated with higher ratings in corporate governance, but only in developing countries. Further, corporate governance is associated with greater firm value, but only in less competitive industries from developed countries. For developing countries, the evidence suggests that corporate governance is valuable mostly in competitive industries. Additional tests show that corporate governance increases labor productivity and cost efficiency, mostly in less competitive industries in both developed and developing countries. Furthermore, in developing countries, corporate governance increases investment in capital, but primarily in competitive industries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The literature on urban financialisation has prioritised the analysis of what finance does in the context of industrialised countries. This paper contributes to an understanding of what it is, and specifically how it emerges from the entanglements between the accumulation of intergovernmental debt, pricing and valuation practices – involving state and municipal utilities, regulatory agencies and consultancies – in the gradual transformation of shared into shareholder water governance in Brazilian metropolitan areas. Moreover, we provide a first illustration of how a more articulate approach between political economics and social studies of finance might contribute to an understanding of the making of urban financialisation, with a particular relevance for a context of less developed capital markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the record of cross-country growth over the past fifty years and ask if developing countries have made progress on closing the income gap between their per capita incomes and those in the advanced economies. We conclude that, as a group, they have not and then survey the literature on absolute convergence with particular emphasis on that from the last decade or so. That literature supports our conclusion of a lack of progress in closing the income gap between countries. We close with a brief examination of the recent literature on cross-individual distribution of income, which finds that despite the lack of progress on cross country convergence, global inequality has tended to fall since 2000. (JEL E01, E13, O11, O47, F41, F62) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We scrutinize a global database of estimated returns to agricultural R&D investments. • Reported R&D returns differ substantially between developed and developing countries. There is widespread professional consensus that agricultural research and development (R&D) realizes high economic returns, though there are concerns as to whether the returns have been declining over the past few decades and are unevenly distributed among different regions in the world. This study examines both the time trend (i.e., increasing or decreasing) and regional developmental differences in the reported returns to agricultural R&D. Using a newly updated and expanded global database of estimated returns to agricultural R&D and a robust statistical methodology, we find that after accounting for methodological changes and other study attributes that have varied over time, the contemporary returns to agricultural R&D investments are as high as ever. We also conduct a Oaxaca decomposition to assess the relative importance of differences among countries in study attributes (e.g., what research was evaluated, by whom, and how) versus differences in how these attributes relate to the IRR (e.g., model parameter estimates). We find that the regional differences in study attributes tend to result in higher IRR estimates in developed countries, whereas developing versus developed country differences in the marginal effects of the attributes on the estimated IRRs tend to result in higher estimates in developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth of electronic payments can substantially reduce the social cost of a country's payment system. We provide an estimate of the potential savings in social cost and determine the responsiveness of payment users when relative prices are used to speed up the substitution of electronic for paper-based payments. While some countries (Norway, Japan) have encouraged their banking systems to establish explicit prices to promote electronic payments, others (the United States) have not. For the first time ever, survey data are available to permit estimation of a model of payment choice from which own price, cross price, and payment substitution elasticities are derived. The data, which are semiannual panel data, concern the use of three methods for making retail payments in Norway: cash withdrawals at ATMs, writing a check, or using a debit card at the point of sale. Our finding that payment users are quite sensitive to relative prices that reflect the relatively lower cost of electronic payments is generalizable. Both production techniques and consumer needs for payment instruments are very similar across developed countries, even though instrument usage differs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses industrial level data from 21 developing and emerging economies over the period of 1995-2013, to analyze the impact of globalization, in particular, trade orientation of industries onto female employment share. The fractional probit estimation reveals that taking cumulative measures of export and import share often camouflages the impact of trade on female employment. The disintegration of export and import share according to their trading partners reveals that exports and imports from the developed world alone contribute to higher female employment. Moreover, it is the low-tech exports to developed countries and high-tech imports from developed countries which results in an increase in female employment. These findings call for the strengthening of trade ties with the developed world, especially when it comes to promoting low-tech exports and high-tech imports. Our results also reveal that the trading links with the developed world can further enhance female employment if developing country possesses a greater pool of educated female labor force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the neoliberal revolution in industrial relations with regard to the book "Varieties of Capitalism" (VoC) by Peter Hall and David Soskice. The VoC reportedly provides a framework for understanding developed countries' institutional similarities and differences. Also discussed are the institutional forms of capitalism, countries' neoliberal transformation, and the liberalization process.

Using a sample of 272 meta-observations drawn from 48 primary studies, this paper conducts a meta-analysis of the empirical literature that examines the impact of military expenditure on economic growth. We find that existing studies indicate growth-retarding effects of military expenditure. The results from the meta-regression analysis suggest that the effect size estimate is strongly influenced by study variations. Specifically, we find that underlying theoretical models, econometric specifications, and data type as well as data period are relevant factors that explain the heterogeneity in the military expenditure-growth literature. Results also show that positive effects of military expenditure on growth are more pronounced for developed countries than less developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capitalism in northern societies is entering an age of advanced precarity. On the one hand, postindustrial societies are confronted by growing surplus populations for whom there exist few positive functions in the market. These new ‘dangerous classes’ are increasingly subject to surveillance, discipline, and exclusion as the policing and penal instruments of the state are called upon to detect and contain risk. On the other hand, capitalism’s ‘insiders’ are increasingly consigned to a precarious life of hyperflexible labor and generalized insecurity. Confronted with a growing mass of ‘social detritus’, augmented by advances in automation and catalyzed by accelerating flows of capital, states in the Global North will increasingly be forced to mobilize the disciplinary instruments of policing and punishment to contain the swelling ranks of problem populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deceleration of economic growth is a characteristic feature of developed countries. Percentage gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in the old Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries has decreased approximately 2–3 times over the last 50 years, and countries have managed successfully to adopt this trend. The largest reduction of GDP growth rate was observed in countries such as Japan where the biocapacity exceedance was the largest. In addition, the analysis of long-term changes of GDP and self-reported life satisfaction in developed countries supports Easterlin's paradox indicating that richer people do not feel more satisfied with their lives; however, people from countries with higher per capita GDP feel more satisfied. At the same time, a statistically insignificant correlation was detected between GDP growth rate and life satisfaction, supporting a conclusion that in the developed countries further economic growth does not increase people's well-being. This suggests that decelerating the rate of economic growth gradually approaching the zero growth (steady state) phase is the natural way towards sustainability and it does not contradict the well-being objective in developed countries, especially ones with high biocapacity exceedance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the impact of stagflation on the economic conditions of developed countries during the 1970's, contrasting such conditions with those of the previous decade and using the contrast to illustrate the provisional nature of economic policy. The causes of stagflation are analyzed, the importance of free markets in economic growth are noted and the benefits and drawbacks of government intervention in the economy are discussed. Factors affecting the ability of democratic governments to enforce their economic policies are enumerated and the philosophical aspects of some central economic principles are addressed.

What is the future of American capitalism in this century? To answer this question we ask--and attempt to answer--a series of other questions. How has American capitalism changed during the past fifty years? Do the greatest economists say anything that sheds any light on the future of contemporary capitalism? And, what will the future of American capitalism be if any of the following systems is dominant during the rest of the century: market capitalism; regulated capitalism; planned capitalism; and command capitalism. The final conclusion here suggests that both democracy and bureaucratic capitalism will survive this century in the United States--but will do so in few other places in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U.S.A. productivity growth has been decreasing relative to that of many other countries. The reasons for this should be viewed in terms of systems factors that affect the productive output of an over-developed country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many successful late-industrializing countries in the 20th century, business groups with operating units in technologically unrelated industries have acted as the microeconomic agent of growth. This paper explores why this business form has characterized countries which industrialized 'late', and why this form succeeded in the early phases of catching up whereas the advanced-country conglomerate has had an undistinguished performance. The paper uses internal resource-base theories of the firm to explore the significance of organizational knowledge and resulting increasing returns in the group form which, even in mature markets and especially in late industrialization, constitute a sustainable source of competitiveness. In the case of late industrialization foreign technology acquisition capability became a necessary condition for corporate success. In the best diversified business groups this capability was transformed into organizational know-how that provided a key resource in the effectiveness of corporate growth through diversification. The first two parts of the paper briefly survey diversified industrial groups in historical contexts and then across a broad array of late-industrializing countries. Then the paper considers why diversification was not prevalent among firms attempting to catch up in earlier historical periods, why the strategy of leading late-industrializing firms was one of diversification rather than specialization and why their chosen diversification path was one involving technologically unrelated industries. This is followed by the core argument of the paper about the transformation of technology acquisition into a competitive asset and illustrated with evidence from South Korea. Finally, the paper analyzes why the behavior of the lateindustrializing group differs from that of the American conglomerate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ouchi's Theory Z prescribes how employees should be motivated for increased productivity. Based on the theoretical work of Emile Durkheim, it views the modern large corporation as a communal alternative to the shortcomings of other institutions in industrial mass society. Ouchi's assertion that Japan is the industrial society in which Theory Z has flourished receives limited support from research findings. Moreover, Ouchi's grounding of the theory in humanistic management seem unwarranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents commentary and additional empirical evidence regarding the money supply volatility hypothesis of Milton Friedman, modeling the U.S. decline in income velocity in the 1980s as a result of volatile money supply growth. Support of this theory regarding Granger-causation analysis is cited and additional data is provided by the author from nine non-U.S. industrialized nations. The data suggests certain examples of evidence for Friedman's theory, but generally invalidates the general application of the principle.

This article examines impact that monetary aggregates have had in major industrialized countries while focusing specifically on Great Britain and Switzerland. The authors investigate factors that produced monetary growth in these countries and discuss some of the resulting policy implications. They examine some of the structural differences in the economies of the two countries that have resulted in different forms of growth. Their findings indicate that interest rates play an important role in determining the behavior of narrow and broad monetary growth.

Although derived from the USDA economy food plan, the Federal poverty thresholds have no real basis in a criterion of nutritional adequacy, but are a relative measure of poverty, suggesting that biological minima cannot be used to define poverty in a developed country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of changes in monetary policy regimes on the relation between stock returns and changes in expected inflation. Post-war evidence from four countries reveals a direct link between these relations and the central banks' operating targets (i.e., money supply or interest rates). Specifically, the post-war negative relations between stock returns and changes in expected inflation are significantly stronger during interest rate regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on national economic planning in France--which critics refer to as a form of central planning and advocates refer to as a market survey that provides information for making business decisions. Characteristics of the French plan include: a statement of social and economic objectives in a framework of business activities; planning commissions which offer information and advice and review target goals; and methods for implementing action and enforcing compliance. Data shows executives' perception of how much the national plan influences their decision making. Statistics show the occupational groupings of commission members. Positive effects such as dynamism and harmonization are mentioned, as well as the negative impact on competition.

It has been argued that Raven's tests are problematic in the context of Sub-Saharan Africa. No discussion of Raven's in South Sudan, one of the least developed countries in Africa, has been presented. We present all known administrations of Raven's to South Sudanese samples. We find that Raven's in South Sudan is problematic. The scores are so low that they may imply that the subjects had little understanding of the test and simply guessed the answers. It is argued that the undeveloped nature of South Sudan means that a test based around shapes and analytic thinking is unsuitable. It is likely to heavily under-estimate their average intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of information and communication technologies (ICT) on economic growth in developing, emerging and developed countries. The main question is whether the gains from investments in ICT differ between developing, emerging and developed countries. The analysis is based on a high-quality sample of 59 countries for the period 1995–2010. Various panel data regressions confirm the previously reported positive relationship between ICT capital and GDP growth. For the combined sample of all 59 countries, the estimated output elasticity of ICT is larger than the ICT factor compensation share suggesting excess returns to ICT capital. The regressions for the subsamples of developing, emerging and developed countries do not reveal statistically significant differences in the output elasticity of ICT between these three groups of countries. Thus, the results indicate that developing and emerging countries are not gaining more from investments in ICT than developed economies, calling into question the argument that these countries are ‘leapfrogging’ through ICT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article empirically explores determinants of net errors and omissions (NEO) of Slovakia during the 1997–2014 period, with emphasis on the 2008–2014 sub-period when a distinct downturn in the NEO time series is observed. Given the statistically significant link between the evolution of foreign direct investments and NEO, we cannot rule out possible prevalence of tax optimization as a part of capital flight phenomenon in developed countries. Our findings also suggest that services sector plays a pivotal role in determining the adverse NEO development in the post-2008 period. However, given the absence of detailed bidirectional data for trade with services, role of misinvoicing practices in the Slovak balance of payments statistics might not be further investigated. Our results further strengthen the call for a deeper understanding of forces driving the NEO evolution in other developed and developing countries suffering from capital flight phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We examine the causal relationship between globalization, economic growth and energy consumption for 25 developed economies using both time series and panel data techniques for the period 1970–2014. Due to the presence of cross-sectional dependence in the panel (countries from Asia, North America, Western Europe and Oceania), we employ the cross-sectional augmented IPS test to ascertain unit root properties. The cointegration test results indicate the presence of a long-run association between globalization, economic growth and energy consumption. Long-run heterogeneous panel elasticities are estimated through the common correlated effects mean group estimator and the augmented mean group estimator. The empirical results reveal that, for most countries, globalization increases energy consumption. In the USA and UK, globalization is negatively correlated with energy consumption. The causality analysis indicates the presence of the globalization-driven energy consumption hypothesis. This empirical analysis suggests insightful policy guidelines for policy makers using globalization as an economic tool to utilize energy efficiently for sustainable economic development in the long run. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The purpose of this paper is to provide an exploration and analysis of lean implementation in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in less developed countries. Therefore, exploratory empirical evidences were collected from a survey study among a sample of 84 SMEs in North Africa. Moreover, statistical tests were conducted to assess the overall picture of lean among SMEs in this region. Although SMEs have expressed their immense need for lean, the level of its implementation is found to be very low. The findings could encourage further extensive studies to develop strategies to promote the use of lean in these countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to make a compendium of the research and empirical evidence available on the impact of technological change on labor aggregates. It has been documented that increases in labor productivity in the last decades did not have a negative net effect on employment levels. However, technological development and automation have been associated with changes in the composition of employment and polarization patterns that explain the significant fall in the share of middle-class occupations during recent decades in developed countries. In addition, specific characteristics of the digital economy have also been linked to trends in concentration and market power that could explain part of the decline in labor share over income in recent decades. Finally, the article discusses the economics discipline's efforts to anticipate these trends and forecast the future automation of jobs and public policy challenges for the labor markets of Latin America in the fourth Industrial Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relationship between economic growth and top income inequality under the influence of human and physical capital accumulation, using an annual panel of U.S. state-level data. Our analysis is based upon the 'unified' framework offered by Galor and Moav (2004) while the empirics account for cross-section dependence, parameter heterogeneity, and endogeneity, in nonstationary series. We conclude that changes in inequality do not influence growth, neither in the short run nor in the long run in the United States as a whole in the 1929-2013 period. Our findings are robust to the inclusion of overall income inequality measures. These findings provide support for the theoretical prediction of the unified theory of inequality and growth, according to which the growth effect of inequality becomes insignificant in the latest stages of economic development that the United States experiences during our period of investigation. Therefore, future policies aiming at moderating the concentration at the upper end of income distribution are not likely to have adverse growth consequences in developed countries such as the United States. ( JEL I21, O47, C23) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate the economic and environmental impacts of tariffs on carbon embodied in trade. We find that carbon tariffs do reduce foreign emissions, but their ability to improve global cost-effectiveness of unilateral climate policy is quite limited - even if tariff rates are based on more sophisticated second-best considerations. If carbon tariffs are levied on the full carbon content of traded goods, they can even increase rather than decrease the global cost of emission reduction. The main effect of carbon tariffs is to shift the economic burden of developed-world climate policies to the developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the aftermath of postwar financial crises in advanced countries. We construct a new semiannual series on financial distress in 24 OECD countries for the period 1967-2012. The series is based on assessments of the health of countries' financial systems from a consistent, real-time narrative source, and classifies financial distress on a relatively fine scale. We find that the average decline in output following a financial crisis is statistically significant and persistent, but only moderate in size. More important, we find that the average decline is sensitive to the specification and sample, and that the aftermath of crises is highly variable across major episodes. A simple forecasting exercise suggests that one important driver of the variation is the severity and persistence of financial distress itself. At the same time, we find little evidence of nonlinearities in the relationship between financial distress and the aftermaths of crises. (JEL E32, E44, G01, N10, N20) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During recent years, the world has faced a growing anti-trade rhetoric, which has been translating in a strong appeal of domestic trade protectionist measures, situation that has been undermining trade multilateralization. The current paper examines the extent to which multilateral trade liberalization affects domestic trade policy liberalization. The analysis uses a panel dataset comprising 166 countries over the period 1995-2014. It suggests evidence that multilateral trade liberalization is strongly conducive to domestic trade policy liberalization. Moreover, as countries further develop, they experience a greater impact of multilateral trade liberalization on domestic trade policy liberalization. The take-home message of this analysis is that domestic protectionist trade policy measures would likely undermine the multilateralization of trade and prompt trading partners to react in the same way. This would ultimately result in trade wars, which would be damage for domestic economies and the world's economic performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims at analyzing the circumstances and objectives of the regional integration in the context of global development. The EU is one of the most influential and important actors of the global world, which represents one of the most developed examples of the regional integration. During the development, the EU went through the several stages on enlargement. Even nowadays, without having targeted to the reactive new member in foreseen future, the EU continues the process of integration of adjacent regions by setting goals and priorities through different forms such as the European Neighborhood, the Eastern Partnership, Association Agreements, various types of Trade agreements. The Eastern Partnership which represents the EU's eastern neighborhood consisting by former soviet republics has steadily gone up with integration: 1. Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine have already signed the Association Agreement (AA) including Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs) with the EU and now these countries work on further progress in terms of the Implementation of AA/DCFTA; 2. Armenia and Azerbaijan are seeking new framework to up-grade their relationship with the EU, Belarus created EU Belarus Co-ordination Group and acts within the Single Support Framework program for 2017-2020. The evolution of EaP countries' trade data evidently show the changes and growing dynamics in the region. The obvious increasing tendency of trade volumes predicts for further success in the future after the DC FTAs are enacted fully for some countries and/or other trade facilitation measures are utilized fully for others. A new approach to the economic growth also suggests that benefit from economic growth supports poverty reduction, widely spreads across sectors and affects the majority of the labor force and hence, rise the welfare of the population. In this context, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) appears to be a useful tool to achieve this overwhelming goal. In the difficult business climate prevailing in most of the EaP countries, the role of the EU support could include raising awareness on CSR and supporting the implementation of relevant standards in the enterprises that are benefiting from the EU assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mothers are shown to receive lower wages than childless women across industrial countries. Although research on mothers' wage disadvantage has noted that the extent of this disadvantage is not universal among mothers, it has paid relatively little attention to how the structural characteristics of jobs moderate the price women pay for motherhood. Using data from 16 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that began in 1997, we examine how the pay gap between mothers and non-mothers varies by occupational characteristics. Deriving hypotheses from three prominent explanations for the motherhood wage penalty--stressing work-family conflict and job performance, compensating differentials, and employer discrimination, respectively--we test whether this penalty changes with an occupation's exposure to hazardous conditions, schedule regularity, required on-the-job training, competitiveness, level of autonomy, and emphasis on teamwork. Results from fixed-effects models show that the wage reduction for each child is less in occupations with greater autonomy and lower teamwork requirements. Moreover, mothers encounter a smaller penalty when their occupations impose less competitive pressure. On the whole, these findings are consistent with the model focusing on job strain and work-family conflict, adding evidence to the importance of improving job conditions to alleviate work-family conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how a country's degree of economic development affects the impact of banking crises on international trade. To this end, we estimate a gravity model of trade using a sample of 139 countries over the period 1975-2012. Our results show that middle income countries are generally the most negatively affected. In contrast, financial turmoil appears to have less impact on bilateral trade flows among high income countries and, more specially, among low income nations. The level of financial development, contract enforcement, as well as the extent of the use of banking credit within international trade all help to explain our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses various issues that are linked to global economic prospects including the divergences and the risks of various economies/countries associated with it. It makes an attempt to study major economies including both the advanced countries and the EMDEs (Emerging Markets and Developing Economies) and their global economic outlook, the divergences and the associated risks. The quantitative tools that have been used for this investigation are growth forecasts, kurtosis of real GDP growth, and exponential distribution of world growth output of major economies/countries. The study is based on data for 16 year, i.e., 2001 to 2016, which have been collected and collated from international published sources such as World Bank Global Economic Forecast Reports, UN/DESA etc. The concluding observations of the paper are that a complete assessment of global economic prospects requires baselines forecasts as well as an assessment of risks. Assessment of risks conveys the policy makers that a sense of uncertainty prevails at the time of forecasting which might vary with incoming data, past forecast performance and changing expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this article is to fill an existing gap in the literature by constructing an index which attempts to assess the degree of a nation's immunity to economic risk by quantifying its level of economic independence and its ability to survive unilaterally. To do so, and following the conventional methodology of indices, the article first identifies the dimensions underlying economic independence and then selects the various indicators that best reflect each dimension. It then normalizes each indicator by using its highest and lowest historic goalposts. Finally, it averages the composite index using specific weights assigned first to each indicator and second to each dimension. The economic independence index, which was constructed for 112 countries, provides a gauge to such countries on where they stand in terms of economic resilience and how much risk they face if they were to stand alone economically, or pursue policies that are undesirable from the perspective of more economically powerful countries. This index thus provides a tool for governments to measure the direction and magnitude of government action needed to improve their respective nations' level of economic independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the economic history of Latin America and its comparison with economy of developed countries. Various topics discussed include future and past of Latin America's economy, economic transformation in the region, economic challenges faced by the country and historiography of Latin American economy.

Population ageing and its influence on the economic growth has long been the focus of major concern. Using bibliometric techniques we found that: (1) although ageing has increasingly attracted more researchers within economics literature, the relative weight of ageing and economic growth related papers does not evidence a clear positive trend; (2) recent studies reveal the willingness of researchers to evaluate less immediate mechanisms relating ageing and economic growth; (3) the increase in the use of empirical methods reflects a trend to test economic phenomena with real-world data against the theory; (4) very few studies focus on developing and less developed countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technical change is a major driving force for economic growth and development, thus technological change and innovations could be a powerful process that opens up opportunities to increase social welfare and benefits for societies. Whether opportunities turn into real benefits and allow for broad participation depends on a number of factors. In this contribution we focus on three questions. First, what are the drivers of and the gains from technological change? Second, is there broad participation in the gains from technological change? Third, what mechanisms generate asymmetric participation or even non-participation? Reviewing the literature, we obtain two sets of answers, one set for developed countries (DCs) and one for less developed countries (LDCs). For DCs, technology is still the driving force for aggregate progress. Innovations are driven by a combination of private and public R&D investments and the diffusion of innovations is spurred by innovative competition. Due to various reasons - such as technical bias, educational attainment, new firm concepts, globalization and outsourcing, disempowerment of labor unions, decreasing labor share in aggregate income, or agglomeration effects - we identify major differences in participation in gains across different groups. Further, technology that originated in DCs is transferred to LDCs. We identify the channels of technological transfer that allow LDCs to potentially participate in the benefits. Here, the development of the modern sector with links to international value chains plays a major role. However, global diffusion of technology and its gains are very diverse. Reasons for this diverse participation in gains include power structures in global value chains combined with an excess supply of labor and the malfunctioning of local governments and institutions in LDCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The middle and long-term slowdown in growth dynamics could bring serious social and political problems for V4 countries (Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Poland) and Romania. It would threaten reaching benefits from potential of convergence process with the developed countries of the European Union. As a result, the V4 economies and Romania should find solutions to achieving a sustainable growth that is associated with an improvement of their international competitiveness. This paper provides an empirical analysis of factors that might determine a stable economic growth in the five mentioned countries. The empirical analysis conducted for the period of 2003-2016 employed Bayesian generalized ridge regression. The main results indicated that the FDI promoted economic growth in all countries, except the Slovak Republic. Only in the Czech Republic, the expenditure on education generated economic growth, while the expenditure on R&D had positive effects in Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study adjudicates between two competing perspectives regarding the importance of manufacturing employment for economic growth with the onset of the most recent round of economic globalization. Established economic theories link shifts toward industrial activities to higher growth due to increases in aggregate productivity. While some scholars argue that the global restructuring of manufacturing in the era of globalization presents novel opportunities for development in the South, others suggest that the importance of manufacturing employment for economic growth in less developed countries declines during this period as competitive pressures increase and barriers to entry decline. I use difference models and a broad sample of both developed and less developed countries in the time period 1970-2010 to examine the effects of manufacturing share of employment on economic growth and how these effects have changed over time. First, I find that manufacturing employment has strong positive effects on economic growth net of neoclassical controls for all countries. Second, I find that for less developed countries, the importance of manufacturing share of employment for growth has declined through the course of the time period studied, particularly after 1990. In contrast, my results do not show a similar decline for developed countries. These findings are robust across alternative estimation strategies. I conclude by considering the theoretical implications of these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to shed more light on the effects of changes in quality of economic, legal and political institutions on income inequality in the advanced countries over the last two decades. Using the robust panel model on a sample of 21 OECD countries, it is found that the impact of elitization of society is more pronounced than the impact of unionization on income redistribution, but both effects are less expressed in comparison to the influence of institutional changes on redistribution. In a globalized economy, insufficient redistribution and high inequality might be interpreted as the consequence of institutional inertia to disruptive technological and business changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the global social–economic impact of shale gas extraction, comparing the differing social and economic impacts shale gas extraction may have on communities in developed and developing countries. It argues that the benefits of fracking are more likely to be enjoyed by communities in highly and very highly developed countries rather than by those in countries with low or medium levels of development . Additionally, it shows that the potential risks and drawbacks of shale gas and its extraction are more likely to be experienced by communities in these latter countries than by those in highly or very highly developed countries. However, it also demonstrates that even communities in developed countries are vulnerable to environmental and health risks associated with shale gas extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]