This paper analyzes quantitative findings on the innovative behavior of firms in the production chains of pisco and shoe manufacture in Peru, which are served by the network of Technological Innovation Centers (CITEs), the most important technology policy instrument available in Peru. These two...

Existing explanations of China's dramatic economic growth since 1978 have neglected a key piece of the China Puzzle, that is, China since 1978 has been a typical “East Asian Developmental State (EADS)” with a long socialist legacy that regularly deploys industrial and science & technology...

The role of agricultural development for industrialization is central both to several theories of economic development and policy. However, empirically assessing the impact of agricultural growth on manufacturing growth is challenging because of endogeneity concerns. To address the...

Why have so few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa been successful in export-oriented manufacturing? This paper uses firm-level data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys to discuss this. The paper shows that although firms in most African countries are relatively unproductive, they are more...

The Brazilian agricultural market is a key source of government revenues. Therefore, many studies are being done to assess the sector's productivity gain over time. However, the regional analysis of agricultural productivity still is not investigated. This work focuses on mapping the gain of...

The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of transportation costs on the Brazilian agricultural production from 1970 to 1996. The nature of the impacts of transportation on agriculture production are discussed and provide the basis for the specification and estimation of an econometric...

Firm-level data for the Czech Republic during 1992-96 suggest that foreign investment has tended to flow to firms of above average size, initial profitability and initial labor productivity. After controlling for this selection bias, we find that foreign investment has a positive, but...

This paper describes private actors' involvement in Colombia's policymaking process. While more transparent and formal channels are used to discuss horizontal policies, they are also less effective. The adoption of targeted policies, however, follows a faster track and depends more on political...

Does financial health shore up firm productivity? This paper empirically investigates this question and presents productivity as another driving factor in translating financial development into real economic progress. Our empirical framework employs Levinsohn and Petrin's (2003) semi-parametric...

This study explores the effects of macroeconomic factors on total factor productivity (TFP) in 34 sub-Saharan African countries for the period 1980-2002. The econometric analysis shows that external debt is negatively and significantly related to TFP. Other factors that have significant negative...