Fair And Inclusive Markets Why Dynamism Matters

We show empirical evidence that there may not be a tradeoff between market income inequality and high sustained growth, which is key for poverty alleviation. We argue that the economies that achieved high sustained growth and low market income inequality are characterized by dynamism—a drive toward sophisticated export industries, innovation, and creative destruction and a high level of competition. What a country produces and how much it competes domestically and internationally are important for achieving fair and inclusive markets. We explore policy options to steer industrial and market structures toward providing growth opportunities for both workers and firms.

In this paper, we review the role of the political economy in inclusive growth. We find that political economy forces on the demand and supply side have weakened redistribution over time and contributed to a new wave of populism. We document growing support for a rethink of the social contract to make growth more inclusive and discuss some of its broad elements.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Rising inequality and widespread poverty, social unrest and polarization, gender and ethnic disparities, declining social mobility, economic fragility, unbalanced growth due to technology and globalization, and existential danger from climate change are urgent global concerns of our day. These issues are intertwined. They therefore require a holistic framework to examine their interplay and bring the various strands together. Leading academic economists have partnered with experts from several international institutions to explain the sources and scale of these challenges. They gather a wide array of empirical evidence and country experiences to lay out practical policy solutions and to devise a comprehensive and unified plan of action for combatting these economic and social disparities. This authoritative book is accessible to policy makers, students, and the general public interested in how to craft a brighter future by building a sustainable, green, and inclusive society in the years ahead.

As countries strive for a strong recovery and to recoup the losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, they need to map out a new path for development and high and sustained growth. Promoting diversification, developing new industrial capabilities, and designing the policies needed to achieve this goal should be a priority. A successful diversification strategy should tackle both broad policy failures, such as an unfavorable business environment and investment climate and sector-specific market failures. This departmental paper presents a conceptual framework to analyze industrial policy, defined as targeted sectoral interventions. The authors first discuss the key principles that should guide policymakers, that is, a focus on the market failures that could justify targeted sectoral interventions, as well as the potential government failures that can undermine these interventions. The authors then discuss some commonly employed policy tools, their rationale, and the associated pitfalls. Finally, the authors outline a stylized decision-making framework.

Despite some pre-pandemic gains in poverty reduction, literacy, and lifespans, many economies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have struggled to ensure that the benefits of economic development and diversification accrue equitably to all segments of their populations. Among the main issues that remain unresolved are the high share of inactive youth (who are not engaged in employment, education, or training); large gaps in economic opportunities for women; fragmented social protection systems; and underdeveloped private sectors with tight regulation, absence of a level playing field, and limited access to credit that stifle the creation of new firms and growth, employment, and incomes. The COVID-19 pandemic not only risks wiping out some of the progress made in the region over the past decades, but could also exacerbate inequality in a durable way. There is evidence that the impact of the pandemic has been uneven across groups, with the recession having a disproportionate effect on the low-skilled, the young, women, and migrant workers in employment and incomes. With widespread inequality, high unemployment, and the expected entry of 27 million young people into the labor force over the next 10 years, countries across the MENA region need to evolve their economic models to boost job creation and make sure that the benefits of economic development are shared more widely among all their citizens. This book’s objective is to reassess the inclusive growth agenda in the MENA region in light of the rapidly changing pandemic-influenced world. It argues that countries need to embrace global trade and technological advances and evolving demographics at home as an opportunity to successfully implement policies that foster higher and more inclusive growth. It underscores that a return to the old social contract is neither desirable nor feasible. The book presents a comprehensive view of policies suited to the regional context that would boost job-rich and inclusive growth within a resilient macroeconomic policy framework. Its goal is to provide guidance to policymakers in the region to frame how best to promote inclusive growth, including in their engagement with all stakeholders.

Viet Nam has made remarkable economic progress over the past decades, sustaining high economic growth. The economy has also proven resilient to shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Do workers hired from superstar tech-firms contribute to better firm performance? To address this question, we analyze the effects of tacit knowledge spillovers from Nokia in the context of a quasi-natural experiment in Finland, the closure of Nokia’s mobile device division in 2014 and the massive labor movement it implied. We apply a two-stage difference-in-differences approach with heterogeneous treatment to estimate the causal effects of hiring former Nokia employees. Our results provide new evidence supporting the positive causal role of former Nokia workers on firm performance. The evidence of the positive spillovers on firms is particularly strong in terms of employment and value added.

Industrial policies pursued in many developing countries in the 1950s-1970s largely failed while the industrial policies of the Asian Miracles succeeded. We argue that a key factor of success is industrial policy with export orientation in contrast to import substitution. Exporting encouraged competition, economies of scale, innovation, and local integration and provided market signals to policymakers. Even in a large market such as India, import substitution policies in the automotive industry failed because of micromanagement and misaligned incentives. We also analyze the risk tradeoffs involved in various industrial policy strategies and their implications on the 21st century industrial policies. While state interventions may be needed to develop some new capabilities and industries, trade protectionism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient tool and will most likely be counterproductive.

As India switches away from a coal-based to a more sustainable energy use pattern, which pathway will it adopt? What is the nature of challenges that it will face, and who will be affected? Who will gain? This volume offers insights into the steps and challenges involved in this transition and addresses some urgent questions about the possible pathways for India’s renewable energy generation. Including contributions from researchers, policymakers, and practitioners, it draws on different disciplines, ranging from science and technology to economics and sociology, and situates the issue of low carbon transition within an interdisciplinary framework. India has committed to gradual decarbonisation of its economy. This book takes this as its starting point and uses a wide-angle lens, incorporating macro as well as micro views, to understand the possible next steps as well as trade-offs that will inevitably be posed. It incorporates the perspectives of all stakeholders ranging from central and state governments, public and private sector firms, on the one hand, to individuals and local communities, on the other, to explore their role in the transition, their interests, and how these will change and evolve. This timely volume will be of interest to students and researchers of environmental studies, development studies, environmental economics, political studies, and Asian studies. It will also be useful to academics, practitioners, and policymakers working on issues related to climate change, sustainable development, energy policy and economics,and public policy.

This paper analyzes the extent of income inequality from a global perspective, its drivers, and what to do about it. The drivers of inequality vary widely amongst countries, with some common drivers being the skill premium associated with technical change and globalization, weakening protection for labor, and lack of financial inclusion in developing countries. We find that increasing the income share of the poor and the middle class actually increases growth while a rising income share of the top 20 percent results in lower growth—that is, when the rich get richer, benefits do not trickle down. This suggests that policies need to be country specific but should focus on raising the income share of the poor, and ensuring there is no hollowing out of the middle class. To tackle inequality, financial inclusion is imperative in emerging and developing countries while in advanced economies, policies should focus on raising human capital and skills and making tax systems more progressive.