New technologies and industrialization prospects of developing countries

Industrial technologies are both an outcome of the industrialization process and one of its main driving forces. The introduction of new technologies can be seen as one of several important factors which directly and indirectly change the context and modes of international industrial production, thus being among the key determinants of the international division of labour. Given the accelerating pace of technological development in industry, there is an urgent need not only to identify incipient technological breakthroughs but above all, at an early stage, to analyze their short-and long-term implications for the worldwide industrialization process and to reassess the validity of crucial assumptions underlying developing countries’ current industrial strategies. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the UNIDO Secretariat.     

New forms of foreign investment in developing countries

To a growing extent, since the early 1970s “new forms” of foreign investment have developed which constitute a departure from full ownership of the capital by the foreign investor and the practice of “packaged” management services. What view is to be taken of these new forms of investment from the development policy aspect?     

Countertrade with developing countries: New opportunities for North-South trade?

Unconventional forms of international trade (such as counterpurchase, compensation deals and barter) have assumed rapidly growing importance, especially in many developing countries, as a consequence of the fall in commodity prices and the worsening of international debt problems since the oil price increases of 1973–74 and 1979. By using these trading methods countries expect to be able to ensure a continuation of the urgently needed flow of imports, open up new markets for surplus products and bring about greater export diversification as between both regions and products. The following article therefore focuses on the countertrade of Third World countries, both among themselves and with industrialised countries.     

Foreign trade potential,small enterprise development and job creation in developing countries

Increasing American competitiveness in the international economy requires expanding trade with emerging markets, especially in developing countries of Asia, Latin America and Africa. Historically, as developing countries' economies have grown, the capacity for exporting and importing have both expanded. In the future, the capacity for trade in developing countries will depend increasingly on their ability to create sufficient numbers of jobs to absorb their rapidly growing labor forces.Unlike Western countries, most developing economies have a small percentage of their labor forces in large-scale manufacturing and a large share engaged in small-scale and informal sector enterprises. Small-scale enterprises have been the primary sources of labor absorption in cities in developing countries and will continue to play a crucial role in the future. Experience has shown that policies for improving the capacity of small-scale enterprises to generate jobs have had only mixed results in developing countries. The challenge facing governments and the private sector in the future include: (1) creating an economic environment conducive to small-enterprise development; (2) removing regulatory and administrative obstacles to small-enterprise expansion; (3) tailoring small-enterprise promotion programs to local conditions and needs; (4) providing capital and credit for small-business owners; (5) involving the private sector in small-enterprise development programs; and (6) providing technical assistance, training and educational programs through public-private partnerships.     

Exports of developing countries: differentiation and comparative advantage

Differentiation among developing countries is a much-discussed phenomenon, mostly without being established in a consistent way. Differentiation implies both diversification of exports and differences between developing countries in this respect. It is the purpose of this article to measure differentiation among developing countries comprehensively and to relate this to changes in comparative advantage. Therefore, Theil's entropy index is applied to the manufactured exports of 100 developing countries over a period of 25 years, at the two- and three-digit level of the international-standard industrial classification. Both aspects of differentiation are confirmed. Manufacturing exports have, indeed, diversified for most developing countries, and some countries have been more successful than others. The latter group has increased its share in exports of developing countries by diversifying away from resource-intensive products toward more advanced products.     

Better marketing to developing countries: Why and how

Managers have long understood the rationale for investing in new products. Now, however, they face an even more compelling need: to invest in targeting new markets, specifically those in less developed countries (LDCs). The argument presented in this article, for initiating or increasing marketing efforts in these nations, makes two related points. First, a healthy world economy requires consumers in developing nations—particularly China—to spend more, because trade imbalances between the United States and LDCs cannot be sustained. Second, in order to foster consumption in LDCs and to profit from it, marketing expertise in the developed world must refocus. Success will require devising, promoting, and distributing products that will overcome economic constraints in some markets, and in others will overcome an understandable reluctance to spend rather than save. We suggest that lessons may be gleaned from examples regarding recent efforts targeting LDCs by a pharmaceutical company (Pfizer) and a food supplement marketer (Procter & Gamble), as well as efforts pioneered in less developed countries themselves (including low-cost private schools and $2,500 automobiles).     

Antitrust and Liberalization in developing countries

A number of developing countries around the world have recently liberalized once highly protected regimes through privatization programs and by reducing impediments to market trade. Many of these countries have adopted an antitrust policy as an integral component of their market reforms. Recent assessments of trade liberalization programs show disappointing results. Such outcomes contradict long-held beliefs that free trade is sufficient to generate competitive outcomes in small economies. Antitrust advocates view these underwhelming achievements as further justification for extensive antitrust enforcement. We argue instead that the failure of liberalization suggests not the correctness but the inappropriateness of the enactment of antitrust policies. The continuance of market power after liberalization is due primarily to lobbying activities by producer interest groups to establish nontariff barriers rather than to collusive practices among producers. Interest groups find cartelization and rent seeking as substitutes in raising prices above competitive levels. Accordingly, the establishment of antitrust serves to improve the relative attractiveness of seeking nontariff barriers. Antitrust policies are ineffective in challenging the emergence of nontariff barriers and thus may have the unintended consequence of promoting anticompetitive activities.     

Oil prices and the developing countries

Many of the present difficulties of the world economy have been blamed on the two oil-price explosions of the 1970s. Professor Chichilnisky shows that, at least in the case of the oil-importing developing countries, the negative effects have been overestimated. In fact, in some respects the oil exporters among the developing countries fared worse than the oil importers.     

The Uruguay Round: Expectations of developing countries

The recovery of world trade in the last few years has not led to an improvement in the situation of the developing countries. Many commodity prices are currently at their lowest level since the 1930s, and protectionism is on the increase. Are the Uruguay Round negotiations likely to bring positive results for the developing countries?     

Financial policy in developing countries

The present financial policies of the developing countries are hardly likely to create favourable conditions for economic growth. A change can only be brought about if the financing of development projects and the imports of consumer goods can be successfully integrated in an overall plan for economic growth and the generation of new sources of revenue for the state.     

Economic recovery in developing countries

Plans and proposals for stimulating the world economy and thus aiding economic recovery in the developing countries have been many and varied, ranging from massive transfer of resources, whether automatic or discretionary, through the immediate programme of the Brandt Commission to a concentration first of all on recovery in the industrial countries. This article takes a critical look at the most important proposals to date.     

Tourism promotion in developing countries

When announcing its ideas on development policy in the Second Development Decade which began in 1971, the Federal Government said that it “wishes to promote tourism in sultable less developed countries (LDCs) through improvement of the infrastructure, especially transport, provision of accommodation and training of the required personnel, making use of development banks in suitable cases”.     

State enterprises in developing countries

The role of state-owned enterprises in the development process in the Third World is the subject of serious controversy. This article attempts to test empirically whether there is a relationship between the importance of public production in developing countries and their overall economic performance.     

Electronic decision-making for developing countries

Political, economic and social development requires "good governance" and intelligent decision-making. Development decision centers (DDC) equipped with appropriate information technology (IT) can help to improve development decisions, increase effectiveness and efficiency of public and private administration and support democratization and political stability.DDC provide IT-based facilities for brainstorming, discussion, organization and evaluation of ideas, objectives, strategies, projects, etc. They can be integrated into community information centers or established within government agencies, business corporations, universities and other institutions of higher learning to offer assistance in solving complex development problems that require close collaboration of decision-makers and experts.The paper analyzes political, socio-cultural and economic development problems, and suggests to use appropriate IT and group support systems as an innovative strategy to overcome such problems. It demonstrates the proposed approach by presenting typical steps and results of development planning in a DDC, the author has built up at the University of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. This center is believed to be the first in Africa and may be considered as a prototype of a DDC which could become a standard facility in community information centers to help integrate improve effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and accountability of development decision-making.