Shahid Yusuf

How universities promote economic growth

This study was initiated in 1999 with the objective of identifying the most promising path to development in light of emerging global and regional changes. The purpose of this volume is to examine the role of universities in enhancing technological capability in Asian as well as other industrial countries. This volume also discusses the University-Industry Links (UIL) policies of national governments, corporations and sub national governments. Case studies, policies, strategies and conclusions for Switzerland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Japan, Thailand, United States, China, Singapore, and India are all individually examined. The volume also covers topics such as knowledge transmission, knowledge production, knowledge sharing, research and development, lessons learned, best practices and innovation initiatives and their roles for economic growth in relation to UIL.

Global Production Networking and Technological Change in East Asia

This book examines the effects of the changing global geography of production for the growth prospects of East Asian economies. The authors conclude that in the face of a global environment, economies in East Asia need to adapt to the changing character of global production networks and to nurture and develop technological capabilities in order to sustain their growth prospects. This is the third volume in a series of publications from a study co-sponsored by the Government of Japan and the World Bank to examine the sources of economic growth in East Asia. The study was initiated in 1999 with the objective of identifying the most promising path to development in the light of global and regional changes.

China Urbanizes : Consequences, Strategies, and Policies

Rural-urban migration is playing an increasingly important role in shaping the economic and demographic landscape of Chinese cities. Over the past two decades, China has transformed itself from a relatively immobile society to one in which more than 10 percent of the population are migrants. Chinas mobility rate is still low compared with that of advanced industrial economies, the sheer size of the migrant flows and their dramatic economic and social consequences have already profoundly affected economic growth and urban development. Looking ahead, decision makers at all levels will need to craft policies that address issues of migration and rural-urban migrants issues that are hotly debated among scholars, Chinese policy makers, and others. This report presents recent findings that describe migration patterns and changes since the 1980s.

Rural Development in China.

The topics in this book deal primarily with more or less conventional attempts to measure what happened to agricultural production and the distribution of income, health, and education in the countryside. The approach is both historical and quantitative. Also, the book describes the many shifts and turns in Chinese agricultural policy, which can be explained without resort to political considerations. The book focuses on agricultural production, agricultural growth, institutional changes, income distribution, health care, and rural education. This study is not the definitive work in Chinas rural development experience. It is more a summary of what outsiders have learned about that experience in the past three decades.

Development economics through the decades : a critical look at 30 years of the World Development Report

The World Development Report (WDR) has become such a fixture that it is easy to forget the circumstances under which it was born and the Banks motivation for producing such a report at that time. In the first chapter of this essay, the authors provide a brief background on the circumstances of newly independent developing countries and summarize some of the main strands of the emerging field of development economics. This backdrop to the genesis of the WDR accounts for the orientation of the earlier reports. The thinking on development in the 1960s and 1970s also provides a baseline from which to view the evolution that has occurred since. From the coverage in the second chapter, the authors isolate a number of key issues common to several or all of the WDRs, and the author examine these issues individually at greater length in third chapter. The discussion in third chapter, which builds on the material in the WDRs, presents some views about how far development thinking and, relatedly, policy making have advanced relative to 30 years ago. It asks whether promoting growth, building institutions, tackling inequality and poverty, making aid effective, and defining the role of the state have been rendered more tractable policy wise by the knowledge encapsulated in the WDRs. Chapter four looks ahead and points to some of the big challenges that the Bank might explore through future WDRs and the value it can add through the knowledge acquired from its cross-country operations and research.

Growing industrial clusters in Asia : serendipity and science

Can clusters be made to order? By Shahid Yusuf. Lessons from the development of silicon valley and its entrepreneurial support network for Japan by Martin Kenney. The emergence of Hsinchu science park as an IT cluster by Tain-Jy Chen. Coping with globalization of production networks and digital convergence: the challenge of ICT cluster development in Singapore by Poh-Kam Wong. Bangalore cluster: evolution, growth, and challenges by Rakesh Basant. ICT clusters and industrial restructuring in the Republic of Korea: the case of Seoul by Sam Ock Park. Constructing jurisdictional advantage in a mature economy: the case of Kitakyushu, Japan by Maryann P. Feldman. Kitakyushu: desperately seeking clusters by Kaoru Nabeshima and Shoichi Yamashita.

Some small countries do it better : rapid growth and its causes in Singapore, Finland, and Ireland

This book is an outcome of a series of study visits to Singapore for African policy makers initiated by Jee-Peng Tan in 2005 with support from Tommy Koh in Singapore and Birger Fredriksen, Yaw Ansu, and Dzingai Mutumbuka at the World Bank. Starting in the 1960s-earlier if Japan is included-a number of East Asian economies began achieving growth rates well above the average and were able to maintain that pace until nearly the end of the 1990s. Countries, large and small, have struggled to imitate the industrial prowess of the East Asian pacesetters and to exploit the opportunities presented by globalization to expand exports. But approximating the East Asian benchmarks has proven difficult, and growth accelerations have tended to be remarkably transient.

Strengthening China's Technological Capability

China is increasing its outlay on research and development and seeking to build an innovation system that will deliver quick results not just in absorbing technology but also in pushing the technological envelope. Chinas spending on R&D rose from 1.1 percent of GDP in 2000 to 1.3 percent of GDP in 2005. On a purchasing power parity basis, Chinas research outlay was among the worlds highest, far greater than that of Brazil, India, or Mexico. Chinese firms are active in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, alternative energy sources, and nanotechnology. This surge in spending has been parallel by a sharp increase in patent applications in China, with the bulk of the patents registered in the areas of electronics, information technology, and telecoms. However, of the almost 50,000 patents granted in China, nearly two-thirds were to nonresidents. This paper considers two questions that are especially important for China. First, how might China go about accelerating technology development? Second, what measures could most cost-effectively deliver the desired outcomes? It concludes that although the level of financing for R&D is certainly important, technological advance is closely keyed to absorptive capacity which is a function of the volume and quality of talent and the depth as well as the heterogeneity of research experience. It is also a function of how companies maximize the commercial benefits of research and development, and the coordination of research with production and marketing.

Facets of Globalization : International and Local Dimensions of Development

The chapters in this volume underscore the transformative role of globalization and urbanization, and show the interplay between these forces. Trade reform and liberalized foreign investment regimess have contributed to the spatial reallocation of economic activity toward cities, especially those cities that can attract and nurture human capital and strong connections to other markets. Global factors have, therefore, reinforced agglomeration economies in shifting economic clout toward cities, and in so doing they may be exacerbating regional disparities in incomes. The rise of cities is changing political dynamics in developing nations. It is forcing a reappraisal of existing constitutional structures and center-local relations, as well as the important--and perhaps more mundane-- arrangements for funding and organizing investment by subnational entities. At the same time, democratization is reinforcing the pressures for local autonomy. This perspective shifts the debate away from whether or not globalization is undermining the role of the central state and toward one about the appropriate allocation of responsibilities and resources to different layers of government. Strong arguments support the position that municipalities can, with the appropriate resources and political structures to ensure their responsiveness to local needs, make substantial improvements in the well-being of urban residents. Experience suggests that some state functions ought to remain with government.

About urban mega regions: knowns and unknowns

Mega urban regions are not a passing phenomenon. They are likely to persist and to enlarge their economic footprints because they benefit from the advantages of market scale, agglomeration economies, location, and the increasing concentration of talented workers. Metropolitan regions which are polycentric, relatively well managed, and have invested heavily in transport infrastructure are able to contain some of the problems attendant upon a concentration of people and industry. Moreover, with energy and water resources becoming relatively scarce and many countries anxious to preserve arable land for farming, the economic advantages of densely populated urban areas are on the rise because they have a lower resource utilization quotient. During the next 15 years, mega urban economies could coalesce in three Southeast Asian locations: Bangkok, Jakarta, and the Singapore-Iskander Development Region (IDR, South Johor). The Bangkok and Jakarta (Jabotabek) metropolitan regions have passed the threshold at least in terms of population size but they have yet to approach the industrial diversity, dynamism, and growth rates of a Shanghai or a Shenzhen-Hong Kong region. Singapore, if coupled with IDR, has the potential but it is still far from being an integrated urban region. This paper examines the gains from closer economic integration and the issues to be settled before it could occur. The paper notes that a tightening of localized economic links between two sovereign nations through the formation of an urban region would involve a readiness to make long-term political commitments based on a widely perceived sense of substantial spillovers and equitably shared benefits. Delineating these benefits convincingly will be essential to winning political support and a precondition for a successful economic flowering.