China is well-placed to avoid the so-called “middle-income trap” and to continue to converge towards the more advanced economies, even though growth is likely to slow from near double-digit rates in the first decade of this millennium to around 7% at the 2020 horizon. However, in order to...

Unemployment occurs because workers and firms have control over wages and prices. The exercise of market power over wages interacts with its exercise over prices. Understanding this interaction sheds new light on the effects of policy interventions on unemployment and growth. Reforms that result...

This article provides a knowledge-based and energy-centred unified growth model of the transition from limited to sustained economic growth. We model the transition between: (i) a pre-modern organic regime defined by limited growth in per capita output, high fertility, low levels of human...

Innovation is often seen as carried out by highly educated labor in R&D intensive companies with strong ties to leading centers of excellence in the scientific world. Seen from this angle innovation is a typical “first world” activity. There is, however, another way to look at innovation...

Science and technology have in-fact been the driving force behind the economic improvement of the developed world. Advances in science and technology have provided the knowledge to significantly reduce poverty while simultaneously improving the quality of life in developed countries throughout...

Little is known about the impact of standards on the economic development of countries which are latecomers to industrial manufacturing and innovation. Standardization is regarded primarily as a technical issue, and hence receives only limited high-level policy support. However, technical...

Commentators have long recognized that much of the work of commercializing an invention occurs after a patent issues. They have not recognized, however, that by the time market conditions make commercialization potentially attractive, the remaining patent term might be sufficiently short such...

Economic development practitioners and scholars recognize the link between universities and regional economic development. It is predicated on the spillover of knowledge from universities to commercialization. The literature has focused on the supply side, which involves university research and...

The economic downturns in South Africa present a significant threat, with the potential to disrupt the nation's notable advances in addressing the persistent challenges of high unemployment, widespread poverty and stark inequality. In the absence of substantial and extensive structural...