Search

Begin New Search Topic Development Publishing Institution United Nations University

21. Reasoning about a distributed probabilistic system

Author:
J.W. Sanders and Ukachukwu Ndukwu
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Reasoning about a distributed system that exhibits a combination of probabilistic and temporal behaviour does not seem to be easy with current techniques. The reason is the interaction between probability and abstraction, made worse by remote synchronisation. In this paper the recently proposed language ptsc (for probability, time and shared-variable concurrency) is extended by constructs for interleaving and local block. Both enhance a designer's ability to modularise a design; the latter also permits a design to be compared with its more abstract specification, by concealing appropriately chosen design variables. Laws of the extended language are studied and applied in a case study consisting of a faulty register-transfer-level design.
Topic:
International Relations, Development, International Organization, United Nations, and Political Theory
Political Geography:
United States

22. Managing the growing impacts of development on fragile coastal and marine ecosystems: Lessons from the Gulf

Author:
Hanneke Van Lavieren, John Burt, David A. Feary, Geórgenes H. Cavalcante, Elise Marquis, Lisa Benedetti, Charles Trick, Björn Kjerfve, and Peter F. Sale
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Like many other places in the world, the coastal region of the Persian Gulf (also known as the Arabian Gulf, and hereafter referred to as 'the Gulf') faces continuous environmental degradation. The unprecedented rate and scale of development that has occurred poses numerous environmental challenges and may be the greatest threat facing the Gulf's marine communities in the coming decades as urban populations along it's shores continue to grow. Some Gulf countries have already developed more than 40% of their coastline during the last 20 years. Pressure on coastal ecosystems is especially high in the smaller Gulf countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE, where residents either live entirely, or almost entirely within 100 km of the coast. Development has led to loss and severe degradation of important natural habitats, including mangroves, seagrass beds, and coral reefs. Coastal 'mega-projects' including artificial islands, waterfront cities, ports, marinas and man-made waterways have sometimes been poorly conceived from an environmental perspective, leading to severe pressure on natural environments. Because development has taken place so rapidly there has not been enough time to develop adequate regulatory, technical, and monitoring capacity to guide this growth appropriately. Present trends suggest that development will not be accompanied by appropriately sophisticated policies and mechanisms for minimizing and mitigating deleterious impacts on the environment.
Topic:
Development, Environment, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:
Arabia

23. Promoting Entrepreneurship in Developing Countries: Policy Challenges

Author:
Wim Naudé
Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This policy brief provides some fresh perspectives on the relationship between entrepreneurship and development, and considers policy design issues. It reports on the UNU-WIDER two-year research project “Promoting Entrepreneurial Capacity”, which aimed to understand whether and how entrepreneurship matters for development, how it could derail development, how entrepreneurs function in high growth as well as in conflict environments, and how female entrepreneurship differs across countries at various stages of development.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Emerging Markets, and Third World
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Burundi

24. Toward a Global Science and Technology Policy Agenda for Sustainable Development

Author:
Paul A. David, Can Huang, Luc Soete, and Adriaan van Zon
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The current economic crisis has tended to sap the policy momentum that had developed during 2006 and 2007 behind public R programmes and institutional initiatives to expand the portfolio of affordable technological means of controlling global warming. This is unfortunate, since the international negotiations about concerted actions among the leading industrial countries to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have so far proceeded very slowly – too slowly, considering both the global nature of the problem and the size of the stakes involved. The initial “bargaining” stance taken by some important players, notably Japan and the United States, was in some respects disappointing in that it appears to fall far short of the EU member countries' endorsement in December 2008 of the package of EC directives designed to activate its “20-20-20” renewable energy strategy – a 20 per cent reduction of GHG emissions, and 20 per cent of energy consumption from renewable sources, by the year 2020. While there have been more promising developments recently, in the convergence towards that target in some of the legislation introduced in the US Congress, and the Obama administration's issuance of US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulatory directives requiring the use of the latest emissions control technologies on new and retrofitted electricity power plants, the outcome of the Copenhagen conference in December 2009 remains uncomfortably uncertain.
Topic:
Climate Change, Development, International Cooperation, and Science and Technology
Political Geography:
United States

25. Entrepreneurship and Structural Economic Transformation

Author:
Thomas Gries and Wim Naudé
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
A stylized fact of economic development is the structural transformation of countries from traditional, mainly agricultural societies to modern economies dominated by manufacturing and services. In this paper we provide an endogenous growth model to illuminate the role of entrepreneurial start-up firms in structural economic transformation. We follow the Lewis-model's distinction between a traditional and modern sector, and underpin this with micro-foundations. We specify mature and start- up entrepreneurs and make a distinction between survivalist self-employment activities in the traditional sector, and opportunity-driven entrepreneurship in the modern sector. The model shows how opportunity-driven entrepreneurship can drive structural transformation through innovation, provision of intermediate inputs and services (which permits greater specialization in manufacturing), and by increasing employment and productivity in both the modern and traditional sectors.
Topic:
Development and Economics

26. Entrepreneurship in Economic Development

Author:
Wim Naudé
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
What is the role of entrepreneurship in economic development? At a minimum the answer should be able to explain the role of entrepreneurs in the structural transformation of countries from low income, primary-sector based societies into high-income service and technology based societies. More broadly though, it should also be able to explain the role of entrepreneurs in the opposite pole of stagnating development (including conflict) and in high innovation-driven growth. Although economic development lacks a 'general theory' of entrepreneurship, which could encompass a variety of development experiences, much progress has been made in extending the understanding of entrepreneurship in the process of development. This paper surveys the progress with the purpose of distilling the outlines for a more general theory of entrepreneurship in economic development. Entrepreneurship in developing countries remains a relatively under-researched phenomenon, so by surveying the current state of research, and by discussing the role of entrepreneurship in dual economy models of structural transformation and growth, a secondary objective of this paper is to identify avenues for further research. Finally, the policy implications from the economic literature suggest that a case for government support exists, and that this should focus on the quantity, the quality, and the allocation of entrepreneurial ability. Many routinely adopted policies for entrepreneurship, such as provision of credit and education, are shown to have more subtle effects, not all of which are conducive to growth-enhancing entrepreneurship.
Topic:
Development and Economics

27. Foreign Aid as Prize: Incentives for a Pro-Poor Policy

Author:
Tejashree Sayanak and Sajal Lahiri
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
We develop a theoretical model of foreign aid to analyse a method of disbursement of aid which induces the recipient government to follow a more pro-poor policy than it otherwise would do. In our two-period model, aid is given in the second period and the volume of it depends on the level of wellbeing of the target group in the first period. We find that this way of designing aid does increase the welfare of the poor. We also consider the situations where the donor and the recipient governments act simultaneously as well as sequentially, and find that by moving first in a sequential game, the donor country can, under certain conditions, increase the welfare of the poor and its own compared to the case of simultaneous moves.
Topic:
Development, Humanitarian Aid, and International Cooperation

28. Foreign Direct Investment, Domestic Investment, and Economic Growth in China: A Time Series Analysis

Author:
Sumei Tang, E. A. Selvanathan, and S. Selvanathan
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
In this paper, we investigate the causal link between foreign direct investment (FDI), domestic investment and economic growth in China for the period 1988-2003. Towards this purpose, a multivariate VAR system with error correction model (ECM) and the innovation accounting (variance decomposition and impulse response function analysis) techniques are used. The results show that while there is a bi-directional causality between domestic investment and economic growth, there is only a single-directional causality from FDI to domestic investment and to economic growth. Rather than crowding out domestic investment, FDI is found to be complementary with domestic investment. Thus, FDI has not only assisted in overcoming shortage of capital, it has also stimulated economic growth through complementing domestic investment in China.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
Political Geography:
China

29. Global Growth and Distribution: Are China and India Reshaping the World?

Author:
Dominique van der Mensbrugghe, Maurizio Bussolo, Rafael E. De Hoyos, and Denis Medvedev
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Over the past 20 years, aggregate measures of global inequality have changed little even if significant structural changes have been observed. High growth rates of China and India lifted millions out of poverty, while the stagnation in many African countries caused them to fall behind. Using the World Bank's LINKAGE global general equilibrium model and the newly developed Global Income Distribution Dynamics (GIDD) tool, this paper assesses the distribution and poverty effects of a scenario where these trends continue in the future. Even by anticipating a deceleration, growth in China and India is a key force behind the expected convergence of per capita incomes at the global level. Millions of Chinese and Indian consumers will enter into a rapidly emerging global middle class—a group of people who can afford, and demand access to, the standards of living previously reserved mainly for the residents of developed countries. Notwithstanding these positive developments, fast growth is often characterized by high urbanization and growing demand for skills, both of which result in a widening of income distribution within countries. These opposing distributional effects highlight the importance of analysing global disparities by taking into account—as the GIDD does—income dynamics between and within countries.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa, China, India, and Asia

30. Globalization, Literacy Levels, and Economic Development

Author:
Alok Bhargava
Publication Date:
01-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper estimated models for GDP growth rates, poverty levels, and inequality measures for the period 1990–2000 using data on 54 developing countries at five-yearly intervals. Issues of globalization were investigated by analysing the differential effects of the countries' exports and imports and by postulating trans-logarithmic models that allow for non-linear effects of literacy levels and measures of openness. The main findings were that literacy rates affected growth rates in a quadratic manner and countries with higher literacy were more likely to benefit from globalization. Second, the model for growth rates showed non-linear and differential effects of the export/GDP and import/GDP ratios. Third, the models indicated that population health indicators such as life expectancy were important predictors of GDP growth rates. Fourth, models for poverty measures showed that poverty was not directly affected by globalization indicators. Finally, the model for Gini coefficients indicated significant effects of 'medium' and 'high' skilled labour work force, with higher proportions of high-skilled labour implying greater inequality.
Topic:
Development, Education, International Trade and Finance, and Poverty