This article explores the growth of the information workforce in the developing world, and presents a framework to explain the occupational shift to information-related jobs. The model includes ...economic variables, such as industrialization and division of labour, and political variables, such as growth of governments. This model is supported by preliminary descriptive statistics. Policy implications are drawn to help developing countries' policy makers formulate appropriate growth strategies.
One of the reasons usually advanced for the secular shift in employment from manufacturing to service industries is the much slower rate of labor productivity growth occurring in services. However, ...an analysis of post-war trends in the UK suggests that the productivity growth differential between manufacturing and services, particularly private services, is narrowing as service sector productivity growth is enhanced by investment in capital equipment embodying new technologies, especially information technologies, suitable for application in services. Described are the results of using a vintage model to estimate the contribution of capital deepening and embodied technical change to the growth of service output and productivity over the past 20 years and to make comparisons with the growth of the manufacturing industry over the same period. The results suggest that high rates of capital deepening have so far contributed more to the growth of labor productivity in services than embodied technical change.
The specification of the appropriate functional form of the aggregate import demand equation is an important methodological problem, which affects the estimates of demand elasticities and the ...conclusions about the impact of policy changes. In the absence of any guidance from economic theory we determine the appropriate form empirically using a generalized functional form based on the Box-Cox method and find, that for a large number of developing countries the log-linear form is the preferred choice for the aggregate import demand equation.
Since 1960 national governments have increasingly found themselves in international trade disputes. Yet little research has attempted to analyze this important form of conflict comparatively. Here ...four general hypotheses are proposed for explaining variations in bilateral conflict outcomes, and a technique for comparing outcomes is devised. A study of one bilateral North-South relationship, that of South Korea and the US, shows that 13 significant commercial disputes occurred between 1960 and 1981, spanning three industrial sectors. The outcomes varied in the degree to which each government achieved its initial objectives. The pattern of variations is explained by the interstate power structure, the domestic distribution of power among industries in the US, the international bargaining process, and to some extent by sectoral market conditions. Conclusions are based on interviews conducted in Seoul, Hong Kong and Washington, as well as on other data.
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