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Structural change has played an important role in the overall process of economic development. Africa seems to have faced greater difficulty than Asia in terms of achieving structural change. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the structural change process in these two regions. The objective of this paper is to test several of these hypotheses utilizing data from a sample of Sub-Saharan African countries as well as a sample of Asian countries. Fixed effects and fully modified ordinary least squares techniques were used to test the hypotheses. The results indicate that there are many similarities between the two regions in terms of what factors are important in the process of structural change, and a few differences. Agricultural productivity, a reduction in dependence on natural resources, openness to trade all seem to be important, but for Sub-Saharan Africa efforts must also be made to aid domestic manufacturing firms so as to be able to compete. In addition, it seems that being relatively labour abundant was important for the structural change process in Asia. Policies aimed at promoting more rapid structural change in Sub-Saharan Africa include promoting agricultural productivity, improving the extent of trade openness, and additional efforts to coordinate the expansion of manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that rapid agricultural productivity growth is necessary for the expansion of manufacturing employment as a share of total employment. This hypothesis is tested utilizing data from 15 African nations. The estimation technique utilized is dynamic ordinary least squares and represents the first use of this technique to study the hypothesis that agricultural productivity growth is an important factor in the growth of manufacturing employment. The results indicate that agricultural productivity growth is a significant positive factor in the expansion of manufacturing employment. This is important in that productivity growth in agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa has until recently been very sluggish. Thus, if manufacturing is to play an important role in this region, then significant investment in raising agricultural productivity needs to occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine the impact of education on income growth in India for the time period 1966-1996. Education is broken down into the categories of primary, secondary, and tertiary. Time series techniques are used to determine whether education, for each category, has a causal impact on growth. Furthermore, the education variables are also broken down by gender and analysis is carried out to determine whether the causal results vary by gender. The results indicate that primary education has a strong causal impact on growth, with more limited evidence of such an impact for secondary education. Finally, the evidence is quite compelling that it is female education at all levels, that has potential for generating economic growth.

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Structural change is important in the overall development process. This paper seeks to examine how productivity growth in agriculture influences this process. In particular, technology in agriculture is divided into two types: labour using, land saving (biochemical) and labour saving, land using (mechanical). Some have argued that only labour saving (mechanical) technology promotes the shift of labour into manufacturing, not labour using (biochemical) technology. However, estimations utilizing data from 10 Asian nations indicate that both types of technologies promote structural change. Thus, investments in such technologies will promote structural change. Additional results indicate that labour productivity growth in services is complementary to structural change. In addition, openness to trade and foreign direct investment and diversification away from natural resource abundance as well as avoiding exchange rate overvaluation also promote structural change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical analysis indicates that a policy shift occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa that involved the political elite redirecting their attention to agriculture, resulting in policies that reduced the indirect taxation of this sector. It is hypothesized that this has had two effects: a productivity effect that stimulated the expansion of manufacturing and a reallocation effect that reduced manufacturing. It is hypothesized that initially, the productivity effect was stronger than the reallocation effect, and thus manufacturing expanded as a share of GDP. However, as indirect taxes continue to be reduced the reallocation effect comes to offset the productivity effect and the share of manufacturing in GDP begins to fall. A panel data set for a sample of Sub-Saharan African countries is created and analysis of this data indicates that indeed the hypotheses are supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Level of education has an effect on economic situation in many Asian countries. Whether gender has an effect on the economic situation depends on the country.