Economic Dividends Research Articles

Investing in kids: early childhood programs and local economic development

Early childhood programs, if designed correctly, pay big economic dividends down the road because they increase the skills of their participants. And since many of those participants will remain in the same state or local area as adults, the local economy benefits: more persons with better skills attract business, which provides more and better jobs for the local economy. Bartik measures ratios of local economic development benefits to costs for both early childhood education and business incentives. He shows that early childhood programs and the best-designed business incentives can provide local benefits that significantly exceed costs. Given this, states and municipalities would do well to adopt economic development strategies that balance high-quality business incentives with early childhood programs.

Demographic transition in sub-Saharan Africa: How big will the economic dividend be?

In mid-demographic-transition, many Asian countries enjoyed a large demographic ‘dividend’: extra economic growth owing to falling dependant/workforce ratios, or slower natural increase, or both. We estimate the dividend, 1985–2025, in sub-Saharan Africa and its populous countries. Dependency and natural increase peaked around 1985, 20 years after Asia. The UN projects an acceleration of the subsequent slow falls but disregards slowish declines in young-age mortality and thus, we argue, overestimates future fertility decline. Even if one accepts their projection, arithmetical and econometric evidence suggests an annual, if not total, dividend well below Asia's. The dividend arises more from falling dependency than reduced natural increase, and could be increased by accelerating the fertility decline (e.g., by reducing young-age mortality) or by employing a larger workforce productively. Any dividend from transition apart, low saving in much of Africa (unlike Asia) means that, given likely natural increase, current consumption per person is unsustainable because it depletes capital per person.

Devolution Dynamics of Spanish Local Government

Over the last few years, there has been a devolutionary tendency in many developed and developing countries. In this paper we propose a methodology to decompose whether the benefits in terms of efficiency derived from transfers of powers from higher to municipal levels of government (the ‘economic dividend’ of devolution) might increase over time. This methodology is based on linear programming approaches for efficiency measurement. We provide an application to Spanish municipalities, which have had to adapt to the European Stability and Growth Pact as well as to domestic regulation seeking local governments' balanced budget. Results indicate that efficiency gains from enhanced decentralization have increased over time. However, the ways in which these gains accrue differ across municipalities—in some cases technical change is the main component, whereas in others catching up dominates.

Leading digital economies: a best practice approach to converged regulation

PurposeOver the past decade telecommunications media and technology (TMT) has driven a new era that has evolved into the digital age. There is a growing consensus in developed countries that TMT is the most important driver of economic and social development for a society. Its genesis began in the USA and its cultural preference for market‐based development set the framework for national policy and development. Recently the formation of convergence regulators amongst many of the leading nations has begun another episode. This article aims to explore and build upon a research study of the senior executives of six of the leading convergence regulators in Asia and Europe. The article aims to analyse by way of a numeric comparison expert views of the key convergence issues three and five years out.Design/methodology/approachA generic conceptual model was constructed of the foundation, social and economic dividend issues. By examining the relative progress of nations developments of these issues and their different approaches, new insights are developed into different regulatory approaches.FindingsThe concept of proactive regulation with competition (PRC) would appear to have benefits for a number of these nations. It is hoped that these research outcomes and hypotheses will generate further research and analysis amongst the world's leading regulators in order to work through the best regulatory approaches for the current challenges.Originality/valueThe paper presents original research regarding regulatory challenges.

Cyprus: Economic Consequences of Reunification

This essay analyzes the economic consequences of the proposed reunification of Cyprus and concludes that, based on the framework presently being negotiated, the much-publicized economic peace dividend will not materialize for the majority of Cypriots. The economic costs and benefits of such an agreement will inevitably be unequally divided, with the Greek-Cypriot majority bearing the brunt of the economic burden with no political or security offset.

Advances in Predicting and Manipulating the Immunogenicity of Biotherapeutics and Vaccines

Therapeutic proteins are vital to the future of human health provision and the survival and profitability of the global pharmaceutical industry. Returns from protein therapeutics are experiencing unprecedented growth: both their number and their economic dividend have increased by an order of magnitude in the last 10 years. The potential immunogenicity of protein therapeutics raises many clinical and safety concerns. Many poorly understood factors relating to both product and host affect immune responses. Available laboratory measurement of immunogenicity is of little utility for predicting the clinical properties of biotherapeutics. Coupled with assay variability and standardization issues, this precludes adequate prediction of the biological or clinical responses of therapeutic proteins, arguing for the utilization of informatic strategies in the analysis and prediction of protein immunogenicity. Currently, many unresolved issues must be addressed and thus circumvented before effective prediction can become routine.

Keeping up Appearances: Profiting from Patriarchy in the Nation's `Safest City'

This paper explores the history and the political and economic dividends of manipulating urban crime data in the US. It demonstrates data manipulation as an historical and widely practised method of safety construction in cities and discusses why rape is a crime especially prone to statistical corruption. Insofar as hiding rape makes a city appear to be safer than it actually is, it is argued that the practice has taken on greater political and economic significance in this era of mobile capital and interurban competition. These themes are explored in a case study from Philadelphia and the many contradictions that it points to are discussed. Patriarchy, it is concluded, is a tool of economic development that puts all urban women at risk.

Outcomes Evaluation of St. Petersburg Russia Women's Wellness Center

Researchers demonstrate that investing in women's health yields great social and economic dividends, yet the health of women often receives little attention throughout the world. Women's wellness centers (WWCs) were established in the former Soviet Union beginning in 1992 under the sponsorship of the American International Health Alliance (AIHA) in conjunction with the United States Association for International Development (USAID) to provide a women-centered approach to primary care, providing access to a wide range of clinical services and educational outreach programs. Because the St. Petersburg Womens Wellness Center (WWC) is considered one of the more advanced centers and represents a microcosm of opportunities and challenges in women's health care delivery in the Russian Federation, a descriptive qualitative outcomes evaluation of the clinic was conducted. In the spirit of continuous quality improvement, interviews were conducted with childbearing women. Findings are categorized into the dimensions of access, privacy and comfort, communication with providers, comprehensiveness of care, and follow-up care. Strengths of the clinic include the “woman friendly” environment and educational offerings. Suggestions also were made by study participants for improvement of clinic services. Qualitative research can be translated into clinical practice guidelines for WWCs in Eastern Europe.

Polycentricity, reciprocity, and farmer adoption of conservation practices under community-based governance

Significant steps have occurred under Australia's ‘regional delivery model’ towards devolving responsibilities for natural resource management (NRM) to community-based regional bodies, particularly in respect of motivating farmers to adopt priority conservation practices. Challenges remain in effectively engaging the large populations covered by these bodies, especially with these bodies expected to assume responsibilities that risk them becoming perceived as extensions of government and favoring particular stakeholders. In this article, I examine whether polycentric systems of collaborative community-based governance can help address these challenges. The examination involves double-censored regression analyses of data from postal surveys of farmers in three regions. The findings suggest that community-based approaches are capable under the regional delivery model of motivating greater voluntary cooperation from farmers than otherwise possible. They highlight the importance of farmers coming to adopt reciprocity strategies in their key institutional relationships under this model. It seems subregional bodies have an advantage over regional bodies in motivating such behavior from farmers because the former are better positioned to engage them sufficiently to turn around norms of free-riding or opposition entrenched by earlier paternalistic approaches to agri-environmental conservation. This indicates the value of a polycentric approach to community-based NRM wherein responsibilities are devolved to the lowest possible governance level consistent with the principle of subsidiarity. The economic dividend from increased voluntary adoption of conservation practices under this approach arises from the reduced transaction, political and other opportunity costs of achieving the same result entirely through coercion or financial inducements.

Growth Consequences of Terrorism in Western Europe

SUMMARYThis paper presents panel estimates for 18 Western Europe countries to ascertain the separate impacts of domestic and transnational terrorism on income per capita growth for 1971–2004. The paper merges domestic and transnational terrorist events in order to attribute growth impacts to the two broad categories of terrorism. Each additional transnational terrorist incident per million persons reduces economic growth by about 0.4 percentage points. Domestic terrorism has a much smaller effect on growth that is about half this size. Terrorism's negative impact on growth is related to the scale of terrorism in the sample countries in order to give a better idea of what is the average consequence in most sample countries. These negative impacts are shown to stem from domestic and transnational terrorism's adverse influence on investment shares. Counterterrorism efforts also augment government spending, which crowds out growth‐promoting investment. We show that the pathway by which domestic and transnational terrorism influences growth differs. For example, transnational terrorism works more through the crowding out of investment, while domestic terrorism works more through the increase in government expenditure increases. A host of sensitivity tests are performed to support our empirical model. Policy recommendations conclude the paper – e.g., measures to curb transnational terrorist attacks have a higher economic payoff than similar measures to reduce domestic terrorist events. Since transnational terrorism has a larger impact on income per capita growth than does domestic terrorism, West European efforts to curb transnational terrorism will have a greater economic dividend than efforts to limit domestic terrorism.

From Identity to the Economy: Analysing the Evolution of the Decentralisation Discourse

Few global phenomena have been as pervasive over the lifetime of Government and Policy as the drive towards decentralisation. The number of countries transferring authority and resources to subnational tiers of government has multiplied over the last twenty-five years. Yet the motives behind this trend remain relatively unknown. We explore these motives by analysing changes in the decentralisation discourse across a number of countries. We find that, while arguments about democracy and good governance have been at the heart of the reasoning for decentralisation, identity has progressively been relegated in favour of the economy and the promise of an economic dividend as the other main motivating factor. However, this shift from identity to the economy is highly contingent on who is driving the process. Despite noticeable shifts towards economic arguments in the discourse of nationalist and secessionist movements, identity remains strong in bottom-up discourses. In contrast, it has almost disappeared—if it ever existed—when the process of decentralisation is undertaken by the state or is encouraged by international organisations.

Bridging the Coverage Gap in Global Health

IN THIS ISSUE OF JAMA, THE EDITORS HAVE JOINED A RE­ markable international collaboration organized by the Council of Science Editors. More than 200 scientific and medical journals have agreed to publish simulta­ neously on a topic of key global importance—the relation­ ship between poverty and human development. By joining together and publishing articles on this common theme, these journals highlight the problems of health disparities in the developing world and demonstrate how the tools and con­ cerned commitment of scientists can help reduce the exist­ ing inequities. The gaps are unacceptably wide and in some areas wors­ ening. While one-fifth of the world’s population enjoys an average life expectancy approaching 80 years and a life com­ paratively free of disability, two-thirds of the world’s popu­ lation living in the lowerand middle-income countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America suffer overwhelmingly from the global burden of illness and premature death. Chil­ dren are the most vulnerable as evidenced by the differ­ ence in infant mortality, with rates exceeding 100 per 1000 in many countries of the developing world compared with a rate of 6 per 1000 in high-income countries. More than 99% of mortality in children younger than 5 years occurs in impoverished settings. Addressing the toll of illness and lifelong disability has become a global urgency. No longer is attention to this prob­ lem merely a humanitarian imperative. Economists have documented that investing in human health can yield huge economic dividends: advancing development, improving the workforce, and enhancing business and infrastructure. Gov­ ernments have recognized that inequities in health can lead to social and political instability. In sum, investing in health is good business and good policy. The instrumental linkage of health and development is un­ derscored in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed to by the heads of government at the Millennium Summit in 2000. The MDGs explicitly link pov­ erty reduction stratagems with health achievement and es­ tablish a series of numerical targets to be reached by 2015.

Development under stress: Sri Lankan economy in transition

PART ONE: FIFTY YEARS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE CHALLENGE AHEAD Economic Development during the 50 Years of Independence What Went Wrong? Pre-Conditions for Achieving 'NIC Status' PART TWO: DEBATE ON ECONOMIC LIBERALIZATION Stabilization and Adjustment A Second Look at the Experience during 1977-93 Does Leadership Matter in the Economic Reform Process? Liberalization and Governance during 1989-93 PART THREE: MACROECONOMIC MANAGEMENT The Economic Cost of the North-East Conflict Free Float of Currency, Budget 2001 and the IMF Package Managing the Economy during Turbulent Times, 2001-01 Managing the Economy at a Time of Terrorism and War and the Prospects after the 2002 Ceasefire Agreement Transforming the Conflict Using an Economic Dividend The Experience during 2002-03 PART FOUR: SECTORAL POLICY Industrialization An Overview Ready-Made Garment Industry Preparing to Face the Global Challenge Market Reform and Diversification in Agriculture Food Security Issues PART FIVE: EMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY Structural Adjustment and Employment Creation The Poverty Situation and Policy

Industrial Relations Systems, Economic Efficiency and Social Equity in the 1990s

A feature of many European countries after World War II was the kind of institutional arrangements that developed between capital and labour. A central question in the literature concerns whether neo-liberal competitive labour markets or organized corporatist labour markets are more efficient. In this paper the economic and social outcomes from these different market arrangements are compared for a number of OECD countries from the 1980s to the end of the 20th century. Although, in the 1990s strongly corporatist countries remain a great deal more egalitarian than liberal market economies, the evidence from this paper indicates that the latter have outperformed countries with corporatist type arrangements regarding employment and economic growth. It appears that the economic dividend arising from strongly institutionalized industrial relations systems is no longer being delivered. Yet, the outcomes of liberal economic policies of deregulation are increasingly unequal societies. The challenge for advanced democratic societies is to deliver on both social equity and economic growth.

Devolution and Development: Territorial Justice and the North-South Divide

One of the unintended consequences of devolution under New Labour is that it might make it more difficult to secure territorial justice between the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. Centralized regional policy, the aim of which was to promote economic equity between the regions, has been replaced by a devolved regional policy that aims to promote an economic dividend within each region. In the unlikely event that devolution yields a uniform economic dividend in each region, the result does nothing to redress the territorial

Changing Perspectives — Changing Paradigms: Taking the "Soft Path" to Water Sustainability in the Okanagan Basin

Access to fresh water is vital to Canada's long-term prosperity. Water is the foundation of our economy and communities, and is essential for all forms of life. Yet despite its critical importance, water is undervalued and often wasted. Perceived as an abundant and virtually limitless resource, the myth of abundance is entrenched even in water-stressed areas such as the Okanagan, where drinking water supplies are at risk, conflicts among water users are common, economic opportunities are threatened, and aquatic ecosystem health and fisheries are declining. Population growth, coupled with the uncertain (yet increasingly evident) impacts of climate change, will only increase these challenges in the future. Water conservation and demand management are critical components in a lasting long-term and sustainable approach to water management. Demand management offers a genuine win-win solution as communities reap both environmental and economic dividends from reducing water use. To demonstrate that conservation is the next best source of "new" water in regions where supply is limited, this paper outlines opportunities to move toward more sustainable water management. A comprehensive and long-term approach to water demand management, referred to as the "soft path," requires active participation by water users and effective strategic planning to create the appropriate mix and timing of conservation measures for the region. Lasting solutions require changes in attitudes and opinions about water and must draw on innovative tools and best practices from other jurisdictions to create a basin-wide and comprehensive "made in the Okanagan" approach to sustainable water management.

Transforming conflict with an economic dividend: The Sri Lankan experience

Peace can generate an economic dividend, which can be further increased by appropriate economic reform. This dividend can in turn be used to raise popular support for conflict-resolution measures along the road to achieving a final political settlement, a strategy that characterizes the recent period in Sri Lanka. However, despite an increase in economic growth following the cessation of hostilities between the LTTE and the government, no substantial dividend has materialized for either government supporters in the South or LTTE supporters in the war-torn Northeast. The causes of this failure include delays in disbursing aid which would have eased adjustment to economic reforms—resulting in cuts to public spending that affected Southern households—and weak institutions that impeded the effective use of aid in the Northeast. The Sri Lankan experience highlights some important lessons for both government and donors on making use of an economic lever for consolidating a peace process and conflict resolution. It also highlights some of the dangers in relying too much on economic levers to consolidate a peace process when levels of mistrust are high.

On the ‘economic dividend’ of devolution

Rodríguez‐Pose A. and Gill N. (2005) On the ‘economic dividend’ of devolution, Regional Studies 39 , 405–420. Recent political and academic discourse about devolution has tended to stress the economic advantages of the transfer of power from national to subnational institutions. This ‘economic dividend’ arises through devolved administrations’ ability to tailor policies to local needs, generate innovation in service provision through inter‐territorial competition, and stimulate participation and accountability by reducing the distance between those in power and their electorates. This paper, however, outlines two related caveats. First, there are many forces that accompany devolution and work in an opposite direction. Devolved governmental systems may carry negative implications in terms of national economic efficiency and equity as well as through the imposition of significant institutional burdens. Second, the economic gains, as well as the downsides, that devolution may engender are contingent, to some extent, upon which governmental tier is dominating, organizing, propagating and driving the devolutionary effort.

The Economic (in)Efficiency of Devolution

The recent devolutionary trend across the world has been in part fuelled by claims of a supposed ‘economic dividend’ associated with the decentralization of authority and resources. The capacity of devolved administrations with greater autonomous powers to tailor policies to local preferences, to generate innovation in the provision of policies and public services, and to encourage greater participation and be more accountable is supposed to deliver greater economic efficiency. There is, however, little empirical evidence to substantiate these claims. In this paper we assess the horizontal link between devolution and regional economic growth in six national contexts (Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and the USA). Regression analyses are used in order to test whether changes in cross-regional differences in growth patterns within each country can be attributed to changes in levels of regional autonomy. The results suggest that, contrary to the expectations of devolutionists, the degree of devolution is in most cases irrelevant for economic growth and, when it matters—as in the cases of Mexico and the USA—it is linked to lower rather than greater economic efficiency.

Ecological Tax Reform and Unemployment: Competition and Innovation Issues in the Double Dividend Debate

The question of a double dividend from revenue-neutral ecological tax reforms (an ecological advantage plus an economic advantage) has recently become a widely discussed topic both in real-world economic policy and in economic theory. The subject has produced many advocates and opponents in the scientific community. This paper examines potential economic dividends from revenue-neutral ecological tax reforms by systematically distinguishing between an efficiency dividend and an employment dividend. Their occurrence is discussed from the viewpoint of two different theoretical approaches: namely, the optimal taxation view and the market process view. According to the optimal taxation view, which dominates recent economic analysis on this subject, an efficiency dividend seems doubtful whereas an employment dividend is likely to occur under specific circumstances (e.g. involuntary unemployment and sub-optimal initial tax system). However, there is a considerable number of unsuitable assumptions which create doubt when questioning how appropriate the use of optimal taxation theory is when discussing real-world ecological tax reforms. The market process view enlarges the analysis by integrating effects on and from competition and innovation. This strengthens the occurrence of an employment dividend in an imperfect world with involuntary unemployment. In this framework the reduction of involuntary unemployment results from declining wage costs which boost labour demand, a shift in the bias of the innovation process, and an evolution of the consumption basket because of changing relative prices.