Book chapter
Institutions, Productivity Change and Growth
In this chapter we aim to consider the interdependence between total factor productivity, economic welfare, and political institutions using BRICS as an empirical example. While relationships between each pair of factors have already been subject to scientific inquiry, we attempt to look at the productivity-institutions nexus in conjunction with economic development. We utilize nonparametric methods (data envelopment analysis) to estimate productivity levels for a large sample of countries and investigate the mutual relationships between productivity, GDP, and institutions for every year in the sample, as well as look into possible connections between dynamics of the three factors. We also analyze productivity trajectories of the BRICS countries in order to gain further insight into how capital-labor ratios might affect further economic development given each country’s institutional context. We show that levels of institutional development are a significant predictor for per capita GDP levels, as well as TFP levels. However, our tests for differences in TFP and growth remain inconclusive.
In book
Health is an indispensable public good. At the national level it has been manifested in the BRICS governments’ commitment to scale up health financing, though to a different degree. At the global level it is evidenced by the international community progress on the three health-related Millennium Development Goals. However despite successes in fighting infectious diseases, child and maternal mortality, old risks persist and new challenges emerge, resulting from the 2008 financial crisis, current slack economic growth and growing economic inequality. The BRICS face these challenges and have begun cooperation on health issues. It is important that they build their emerging health agenda recognizing these challenges, committing to develop sustainable policy solutions, and cooperating with other actors to promote effective health governance for change. To explore how the BRICS contribute towards global health governance the article first considers the BRICS cooperation (its institutionalization, discourse, and engagement with other international institutions) with a focus on health issues. The authors then look into the BRICS members’ national health systems, challenges and goals. The article concludes with expectations of the BRICS future health agenda and its implications for global governance.
Effective property rights protection plays a fundamental role in promoting economic performance. Yet measurement problems make the relationship between property rights and entrepreneurship an ambiguous issue. As an advancement on previous research in this paper we propose a new approach to the evaluation of the security of property rights based on direct measures that overcomes some limitations of previous studies. We apply this new metrics to a survey of manufacturing firms in Russia to identify the economic effects associated with the lack of property protection in a transition economy. Our analysis supports the view that there is a close relationship between institutions, property rights and economic growth. Our findings confirm that redistributive risks provide a depressing effect on investment and innovative activity of manufacturing enterprises and potentially result in a huge loss in efficiency and economic growth, which in other institutional settings could have been avoided.
The global economic and political landscape is undergoing profound changes as the world enters a period of rapid transformation development strategies or adjusting their existing ones with greater prominence given to the role of innovation in the leading and underpinning development to strengthen their strategic arrangements for innovation⁃driven development, in a bid to improve their international competitiveness and seize the initiative in global competition Science, technology and innovation (STI) are recognized as the golden key to the door to growth In this trend of the times, the BRICS countries are spearheading the development of developing countries and attracting international attention with their highly innovative and distinctive development strategies Meanwhile, the BRICS as a bloc has become an exemplar of STI cooperation of developing countries.
As the rotating chair of BRICS in 2017, China will host the 9th BRICS Summit in Xiamen in September In the lead⁃up to the summit, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (MOST) hosted the 5th BRICS Science, Technology and Innovation Ministerial Meeting in Hangzhou in July, where BRICS STI ministers had in⁃depth discussions and reached wide consensus on topics including STI policy, cooperation in priority areas, and co-funding for multilateral research projects The BRICS Action Plan for Innovation Cooperation and the Hangzhou Declaration
To support the work relating to BRICS STI cooperation under the Chinese presidency, China Science and Technology Exchange Center (CSTEC), as entrusted by MOST, established a High Level Expert Group of leading professionals The High⁃level Expert Group complied theBRICS Innovative Competitiveness Report 2017, in collaboration with the science and technology sections of Chinese embassies in other BRICS countries and STI think tanks in other BRICS countries Based on the latest available data, the Report of the BRICS STI cooperation, and presents country and thematic studies on the STI development of BRICS countries.
The Report consists of four parts, with a total of 12 sub⁃reports Part I two general sub⁃reports: an analysis report which evaluates and forecasts the national innovation competitiveness of BRICS countries and their STI cooperation and strategic priorities; and a research report on the priority areas BRICS STI cooperation for win⁃win results This part evaluates the comprehensive national innovative competitiveness of the BRICS countries since 2001 and forecast their innovative competitiveness in the next five years It also assesses the current status and progress of China's STI cooperation with other BRICS countries, and identifies priority areas of BRICS STI cooperation, support for BRICS countries to strengthen their national innovation competitiveness Part Ⅱ presents six country reports, which evaluate, analyze and forecast of the national innovation competitiveness of the BRICS countries and studies of their STI cooperation within the BRICS framework Part Ⅲ presents four thematic reports, which focus on the four thematic areas to STI, including digital economy, inclusive finance, energy, and agriculture, elaborate the STI development and potential of the individual BRICS countries in those areas, and provide valuable inputs for the BRICS countries' national innovation competitiveness Part IV contains appendixes, including an introduction to the related indicator system BRICS STI cooperation.
This is the second volume in a series of five books bringing together the results of intensive research on the national systems of innovation (NSI) in the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. This book analyses the co-evolution of inequality and NSI across the BRICS economies. Inequality and Development Challenges argues that inequalities (assets, access to basic services, infrastructure, knowledge, race, gender, ethnicity, and geographic location) that go beyond the aspects of income, must be factored into development strategies since the benefits of innovation are not distributed equally. It combines original and detailed data, making this book an invaluable resource for researchers and scholars in economics, development studies and political science, as well as policymakers and development practitioners interested in the BRICS countries.
Institutions affect investment decisions, including investments in human capital. Hence institutions are relevant for the allocation of talent. Good market-supporting institutions attract talent to productive value-creating activities, whereas poor ones raise the appeal of rent-seeking. We propose a theoretical model that predicts that more talented individuals are particularly sensitive in their career choices to the quality of institutions, and test these predictions on a sample of around 95 countries of the world. We find a strong positive association between the quality of institutions and graduation of college and university students in science, and an even stronger negative correlation with graduation in law. Our findings are robust to various specifications of empirical models, including smaller samples of former colonies and transition countries. The quality of human capital makes the distinction between educational choices under strong and weak institutions particularly sharp. We show that the allocation of talent is an important link between institutions and growth.
Measuring Economic Growth and Productivity presents new insights into the causes, mechanisms, and results of growth in national and regional accounts. It demonstrates the versatility and usefulness of the KLEMS databases, which generate internationally comparable industry-level data on outputs, inputs, and productivity. By rethinking economic development beyond existing measurements, its contributors align the measurement of growth and productivity to contemporary global challenges, addressing the need for measurements superior to the Gross Domestic Product. All contributors to this foundational volume are recognized experts in their fields, inspired by the path-breaking research of Dale W. Jorgenson.
One of the basic factors of economic growth in the information knowledge - based economy is the innovation component determined by the level of intellectual capital usage. Of the specifics in the usage of intellectual capital is that the cost evaluation of intellectual resources on the macro-level as a factor of economic growth is extremely difficult and there are more evaluation possibilities on the micro-level. The risk's estimation based on making use of discount theory.