后发国家探索独立自主发展道路的优劣势表现与路径选择

后发国家的工业化进程受历史、社会结构以及要素禀赋等多重复杂因素影响,存在后发优势和后发劣势。准确理解后发优势和后发劣势的动态演进过程和内在逻辑关系极其重要。对此,发展经济学不仅应呼应和回答后发国家在后工业化时期的技术创新与制度变革的结构性问题,而且应重点研究后发国家不同阶段的后发优势和后发劣势的变化问题。以中国为代表的后发国家在工业化进程中充分发挥后发优势,经过艰辛探索与实践创新,走出了一条独立自主的发展道路,取得了令世界瞩目的经济发展成就,为其他后发国家技术创新、制度变革等具体路径提供了有益参考。本文结合前期研究,围绕中国三次比较有影响力的关于后发优势、后发劣势的争论,总结提炼中国的成功经验,提出后发国家应聚焦科技自主创新与制度改革,以结构性改革为突破口发挥自身优势,促进后发国家内生性增长,进而在未来发展过程中尽快补齐短板,加快探索适合国情特色、适应世界经济发展潮流的发展模式和发展道路。本文建议立足后发国家的成败案例和不同模式,深化后发优势与后发劣势的比较研究,构建新的发展经济学范式与实证研究体系。     

Technological innovations in the Indian banking industry: the late bloomer

Given that technological innovations in the banking sector in industrialised countries have been shown to increase productivity of this industry around the world, then why did India shy away from adopting this technology until the 1990s? Why has India been a late adopter of technology in the banking industry when it could have reaped the benefits from the existing R&D expertise developed by innovators and early adopters? This article charts out the path of technological innovation in the Indian banking industry post-economic liberalisation (1991-2) and identifies initial conditions in terms of competitive environment and regulatory pressures that have contributed to the diffusion of these innovations. The article highlights the role of labour unions in public sector banks and their initial opposition to technological adoption. The empirical analysis demonstrates the superior performance of the early adopters of technology (private sector and foreign banks) as measured by productivity, returns on equity, and market share, as compared to the late or passive adopters (public sector banks).     

Causes of the great recession of 2007–2009: The financial crisis was the symptom not the disease!

Globalization has increasingly made it possible for labor in developing countries to augment labor in the developed world, without having to relocate, in ways not thought possible only a few decades ago. We argue that this large increase in the developed world’s effective labor supply, triggered by geo-political events and technological innovations, coupled with the inability of existing institutions in the US and developing nations themselves to cope with this shock, set the stage for the great recession. The financial crisis in the US was but the first acute symptom.     

Travelling risks: How did nanotechnology become a risk in India and South Africa?

India and South Africa have invested in nanotechnology since the early 2000s and have identified risks to human health and the environment as an important issue for governance. This is exemplary for a wider trend in which ‘developing countries’ play an increasingly prominent role in the development, production and use of emerging technologies. This validates the claim of the world risk society thesis that countries around the world are now confronted with the risks of emerging technologies. Little is known, however, about the way developing countries deal with the potential risks of emerging technologies. Starting from the observation that the risk colonization of nanotechnology in developing countries cannot be taken for granted, this article draws upon the relational theory of risk in order to investigate how nanotechnology became understood as an object of risk in South Africa and India. The article shows that nanotechnology was constituted as an object of risk in rather different ways in India and South Africa, demonstrating that the spread of risk discourses – and the emergence of a world risk society – cannot be understood without attending to the local context. The article shows that way risk is understood and dealt with changes as risk discourses travel around the world, giving many different faces to the world risk society.     

Is your vision consistent?: A method for checking, based on scenario concepts

Common sense tells us that the future is an essential element in any strategy. In addition, there is a good deal of literature on scenario planning, which is an important tool in considering the future in terms of strategy. However, in many organizations there is serious resistance to the development of scenarios, and they are not broadly implemented by companies. But even organizations that do not rely heavily on the development of scenarios do, in fact, construct visions to guide their strategies. But it might be asked, what happens when this vision is not consistent with the future? To address this problem, the present article proposes a method for checking the content and consistency of an organization's vision of the future, no matter how it was conceived. The proposed method is grounded on theoretical concepts from the field of future studies, which are described in this article. This study was motivated by the search for developing new ways of improving and using scenario techniques as a method for making strategic decisions. The method was then tested on a company in the field of information technology in order to check its operational feasibility. The test showed that the proposed method is, in fact, operationally feasible and was capable of analyzing the vision of the company being studied, indicating both its shortcomings and points of inconsistency.     

Sustainable Internet access for the rural poor? Elements of an emerging Indian model

Although there are many projects, mainly supported by international donors, demonstrating that the Internet can be supplied to rural areas in developing countries, the real objective is to make these projects sustainable on a commercial basis. Among other things, this type of sustainability will require a project with unusually low costs of Internet delivery to poor, isolated users. In this paper we have examined a case from India, which uses a unique combination of low-cost indigenous technology and a low-cost model of delivery that exploits the ability of the informal sector to respond and adapt to local needs. This model, we feel, may serve as an example, to other developing countries seeking to bridge the global Digital Divide.     

Feminist futures: From dystopia to eutopia?

This essay evaluates the present and future state of world development from the perspective of Third World women, finding that globalization, alongside US foreign policy, is leading to a future of increased poverty, environmental damage, and conditions where peace and human security are not served. Yet, powerful new ways of organizing for change have been created by the actions and visions of the Zapatista communities of Chiapas, the rubber-tappers in the Amazon rainforest, the Self-Employed Women's Association in India, the movement against female genital mutilation in Senegal, and the Israeli peace activists of Women in Black. Their emphasis on principles of social justice and the love of life they embody offer a vision of a possible future eutopia—a better, not a perfect, society—that is within reach if enough people take them up and shape them further. Using the new paradigm of “women, culture, and development”, and the practices of future studies we analyze the ways in which women in a variety of settings are moving against the current of a dystopic future and are realizing visions of a more life-affirming form of development.     

Transport energy futures: Exploring the geopolitical dimension

The future of road transport, being currently reliant on carbon-based liquid fuels, is largely unclear. Some advocate the necessity of single renewable energy paradigm, but its realization is potentially fraught with difficulty owing to technological challenges, existing sunk costs, and path dependencies associated with existing and emerging options. It could also result in disadvantageous outcomes to emerging economies. Another school of thought proposes that future road transport, even within single nations, will require multiple energy types, mainly because a single source will be insufficient to meet projected needs. A multiple paradigm has the potential to be expensive because several infrastructures have to be implemented simultaneously. This paper aims to assess both concepts by considering the largely neglected dimensions of resource location and regional geophysical attributes, in addition to national technical expertise, industry capacity and modal factors. Case studies from both the developed world (the European Union and Australia) and the developing world (sub-Saharan Africa and China) will assess the possibility of implementing a single transport energy paradigm versus a more pluralistic regime. The results will help to inform policy making and enable greater foresight with regard to making long-term transport infrastructure investment decisions.     

The future of India’s economic growth: the natural resources and energy dimension

The continuation of widespread poverty apart, the biggest danger that India faces is the wanton destruction and degradation of all the country’s natural resources and a growing, unsustainable, dependence on the use of hydrocarbon fuels. We are losing ten percent of our GDP as a result of the damage to and degradation of our natural resources. But environmental decision-making has not yet been merged with mainstream economic decision making. In the developed countries, environmental protection followed a path defined by the Environmental Kuznets curve, involving significant increases in income and pollution levels to a point where the trend changed. A developing country like India cannot pursue the same path, and would need to set up a governance structure and policy regime that allow the turning point to take place at substantially lower levels of income. The internalization of social and environmental externalities would ensure that resources are used in a sustainable and responsible manner. In the matter of energy use, for instance, proactive policies—such as stress on renewable sources and the rationalisation of subsidies—are needed to decrease the dependence on unsustainable imports and to create the conditions under which the dispossessed and poor sections of society are able to meet their basic energy needs. Blindly aping the consumerist approach of the developed world, and neglecting the ecological footprint of lifestyles, could prove disastrous for our populous country.     

Single-payer health care systems: the roles and responsibilities of the public and private sectors

Health care systems all over the world are experiencing some change as they look for a new balance between supply and demand. This article provides context for the U.S. health care financing debate by examining the health care systems of five other countries: Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, China and India. The authors show that, with few exceptions, countries around the world have seen an increase in both government and private health care spending between 1998 and 2002. The authors also demonstrate that employers throughout most of the world are becoming more, rather than less, involved in the funding and delivery of health care to employees and their dependents-even among nations with so-called single-payer health systems.     

中国核电政策选择:不宜轻言放弃

日本核事故后,世界各主要核国家对核电发展态度各异。我国应在高度重视核安全的基础上,从自身发展出发审慎考虑核电发展,不轻言放弃2011年3月11日,日本东北部发生里氏9级特大地震及其引发的海啸,导致福岛核电站辐射泄漏事故,最终定位7级最高级别核事故。几个月过去,这一事件给世界主要持核国家所带来的不同程度影响正在显现。     

The new age of capitalism : Innovation-mediated production

Capitalism is undergoing an epochal transformation from a mass-production system where the principal source of value was physical labour to a new era of innovation-mediated production where the principal component of value creation, productivity and economic growth is knowledge and intellectual capabilities. Capitalism in this new age of innovation-mediated production will require deep and fundamental changes in the organization of enterprise, regions, nations and international economic and political institutions. Survival in this new era will require the development of new organizational forms and systems, such as teams and new incentive systems, which decentralize decision making, mobilize intellectual capabilities, and harness the knowledge and intelligence of all members of the organization. This article outlines the fundamental trends emerging in this new age of capitalism and provides a detailed case-study of how one organization, a US-Japan joint venture steel mill in the USA, is organizing to meet the challenges of this new era. The conclusion outlines key lessons for the development of enterprise, regional and national strategies for both the technologically advanced countries and the developing world.     

The future for technological collaboration

Technological collaboration between firms is argued to be increasing and to be an important element of corporate and technological development. Such collaboration is actively promoted by governments. It is a central element of the ‘techno-globalism’ analysis of future international economic and technology development. There are many reasons for the promotion of collaboration, but its outcomes are mixed. Collaboration may reflect industrial and technological weakness; it has a limited technology focus, rarely appropriate to world problems; its international range is restricted to the global triad; and public policies and corporate strategies may be incongruent. By highlighting the many uncertainties surrounding collaboration, this article questions the techno-globalism analysis, and raises some issues concerning the future of collaboration between firms. It argues that whatever its future, the importance of indigenous capabilities remains critical for nations and for their firms.     

Global work force 2000: the new world labor market

Just as there are global markets for products, technology, and capital, managers must now think of one for labor. Over the next 15 years, human capital, once the most stationary factor in production, will cross national borders with greater and greater ease. Driving the globalization of labor is a growing imbalance between the world's labor supply and demand. While the developed world accounts for most of the world's gross domestic product, its share of the world work force is shrinking. Meanwhile, in the developing countries, the work force is quickly expanding as many young people approach working age and as women join the paid work force in great numbers. The quality of that work force is also rising as developing countries like Brazil and China generate growing proportions of the world's college graduates. Developing nations that combine their young, educated workers with investor-friendly policies could leapfrog into new industries. South Korea, Taiwan, Poland, and Hungary are particularly well positioned for such growth. And industrialized countries that keep barriers to immigration low will be able to tap world labor resources to sustain their economic growth. The United States and some European nations have the best chance of encouraging immigration, while Japan will have trouble overcoming its cultural and language barriers.     

Anticipating the future: ‘Biotechnology for the poor’ as unrealized promise?

This article analyses visions of the future articulated by proponents of ‘biotechnology for the poor’, those who claim that an embrace of transgenic technology in agriculture is critical to alleviating poverty in developing countries. Specifically, we analyse how such ‘biotechnology for the poor’ proponents represent a future with or without transgenic crops. Such representations include visions of a beckoning (promising) future, where much is to be gained from an embrace of transgenic technology in agriculture, and an onrushing (threatening) future, where much will be lost if the technology is not embraced. The article shows that claims about a beckoning or onrushing future by ‘biotechnology for the poor’ proponents are based upon unexamined or problematic assumptions about the poor and poverty. As such, poverty becomes merely a moral backdrop against which visions of a future are articulated. Furthermore, ‘biotechnology for the poor’ writings do not engage in dialogue with alternative voices in articulating their perspectives on the future, losing a key opportunity to democratize debate about this crucial issue. We conclude by considering the policy consequences (in regulatory and institutional terms) of ‘biotechnology for the poor’ depictions of the future, particularly for the global South where such consequences will be felt.     

The new world disorder

On January 1, 1995, representatives from 76 countries signed the World Trade Organization charter, which for years had been part of a temporary trade agreement. The WTO's emergence as a fully empowered supranational body seemed to reflect the triumph of what the first President Bush had described as the "new world order." That order was based on two assumptions: that a healthy economy and a sound financial system make for political stability, and that countries in business together do not fight each other. The number one priority of U.S. foreign policy was thus to encourage the former Communist countries of Europe and the developing nations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa to adopt business-friendly policies. Private capital would flow from the developed world into these countries, creating economic growth. It sounded too good to be true, and so it proved. The new world order of Bush père and his successor, Bill Clinton, has been replaced by the new world disorder of Bush fils. Under the second Bush's administration, the economic and political rationale-behind the Washington consensus of the 1990s has unraveled, forcing a radical change in our perceptions of which countries are safe for business. Negotiating this new environment will require companies to more rigorously evaluate political events and more carefully assess the links between political, economic, and financial risk factors. They'll need to be more selective about which markets to enter, and they'll need to think differently about how to position themselves in those markets. The geopolitical events of the past year, the Bush administration's global war on terror, as well as ongoing convulsions in traditional political and economic relationships must be understood and managed by corporate leaders worldwide. With careful analysis, business leaders can increase their companies' visibility and better respond to the uncertainties of the new world disorder.     

Currency regimes and currency crises: What about cocoa money?

Since the mid-1990s, there has been a significant shift towards floating exchange rate regimes by developing nations, primarily due to the lack of a viable alternative. Hard-peg systems, which both eliminate independent monetary policy and, if not credible, are subject to speculative attack, are increasingly viewed as a poor choice. This paper explores, theoretically and empirically, the potential benefits and drawbacks of an alternative: commodity-backed money. While proposals for commodity-based money in the industrialized world date back to 1934, with the seminal work by Benjamin Graham, this work analyzes its application to the developing world and its key commodity products.     

跨境数据流动:数字经济下的全球博弈与中国选择

随着信息和技术革命的推进,数字经济已经成为全球经济发展的新要求和新趋势,跨境电商、数字贸易等数字经济在全球范围内加速发展,经济贸易全球化推动了数据在不同国家之间交互、流动。跨境数据流动治理对发展数字经济、维护国家安全、构建数字红利收入分配体系至关重要。全球各国对跨境数据流动的规制反映了其国际博弈的战略:美欧等发达经济体希望促进数据自由流动;而发展中国家则采取"本土化"防御方式,抵御数据领域的长臂管辖。我国选择了适应当前数字经济发展形势的"本土化"政策,但也面临对外和对内等多重挑战。建议在总体的监管路径选择上,合理兼顾审慎性和包容性;完善跨境数据流动制度体系,保障立法的全面性和灵活性;构建跨境数据流动治理的统一监管架构,提升治理体系的统筹性和协同性;完善跨境数据流动安全评估体系,平衡金融市场的开放性和安全性。     

论技术创新驱动经济发展的加速效应——兼论发展中国家中等收入陷阱产生的原因

在技术创新驱动经济发展的过程中,技术进步不仅直接通过提升资本要素的生产率水平来提升经济增长速度,而且也间接提升了资本积累的速度,由此将进一步提升经济增长速度,导致技术进步对经济增长速度的弹性大于1,形成了技术创新驱动经济发展的加速效用.当发展中国家剩余劳动力的转移依赖于资本积累的速度时,技术进步的速度还可以通过提升资本积累速度和剩余劳动力的转移速度来进一步提升经济增长速度,因此,发展中国家技术创新驱动经济发展加速效应更加明显.也正因为这一机理,发展中国家可能因为技术创新的速度过低导致经济发展速度过低从而陷入中等收入陷阱.     

中国企业“走出去”获得发达国家“核心技术”了吗?——基于技能偏向性技术进步视角的分析

技能偏向性技术进步是创新型经济发展的基本动力,也是发达国家高科技领域核心技术的典型特征。本文从技能偏向性技术进步视角,研究中国企业“走出去”成效问题。论文基于2003-2015年中国对29个OECD成员国OFDI流量,测算了30个省市从发达国家获得的逆向技术溢出水平,利用固定效应和面板门槛模型进行的实证检验表明,OFDI逆向技术溢出对国内技能偏向性技术进步产生了抑制效应,自主创新对技能偏向性技术进步产生了促进效应;制约OFDI逆向技术溢出效应的因素既与国内存在的产能过剩和技术吸收能力不足有关,也与GVC低端锁定和发达国家的技术封锁意愿有关。以上研究通过了一系列的稳健性检验。本文研究为反驳美国针对中国“通过海外投资窃取核心技术”的指控提供了依据,对中国的对外投资战略调整也具有重要的启示。