Rosenstein-Rodan (1943) and others posit that rapid development requires a 'big push' -- the coordinated rapid growth of diverse complementary industries, and suggests a role for government in providing such coordination. We argue that Japan's zaibatsu, or pyramidal business groups, provided...

In developing countries, informal firms account for up to half of economic activity. They provide livelihood for billions of people. Yet their role in economic development remains controversial with some viewing informality as pent-up potential and others viewing informality as a parasitic...

A field experiment in Sri Lanka provides informal firms incentives to formalize. Information about the registration process and reimbursement of direct costs does not increase registration. Payments equivalent to one-half to one month (alternatively, two months) of the median firm's profits...

While the role of rural informal industrial clusters in generating income and employment opportunities for the rural poor is widely acknowledged, studies seldom examine the growth process of informal industries in developing countries. Particularly, studies seldom examine why many of the...

A recent wave of economic research has studied the transformation of China from a poor country in the 1970s to a middle-income economy today. Based on this literature, we discuss the factors driving China’s development process. We provide a historical account of China’s rise, fall, and...

A critical input that enables capacity for export is investment in technology at the firm-level. Using a survey data, this study investigates technology investments by firms in Southwest Nigeria and how technology investment related factors affect the export potential of firms. Results...

Knowledge spillovers are widely thought to be important for innovative activity, yet theory is ambiguous about the sign of the relationship. Assuming that knowledge spillovers are more easily exploited where intellectual property rights are weakly enforced, this paper uses country–industry...

China is well-placed to avoid the so-called “middle-income trap” and to continue to converge towards the more advanced economies, even though growth is likely to slow from near double-digit rates in the first decade of this millennium to around 7% at the 2020 horizon. However, in order to...

The report investigates the role of government programmes in strengthening SMEs’ resilience to external shocks, by focusing on SME digitalisation policies implemented in Korea during the COVID-19 outbreak. The report examines how digital tools and services have made SMEs more resilient during...

This paper examines the catching-up process in industrial development in East Asia. For this purpose, RCA curve will be used to depict this process and Spearmanís rank correlation coefficient will be employed as a supporting evidence for the catching-up. Evolving specialization patterns of East...