Narrow Results

Poverty reduction and inclusive growth in poor rural areas attracted the increasing attention of governments and scholars around the world. We investigate financial literacy by conceptualizing its impacts on rural households’ poverty reduction, considering current and long-term economic income dynamics. Using a database from 2015 to 2017 China Household Finance Survey, we find that financial literacy has current and long-term effects on promoting rural households’ status by eliminating and effectively improving poverty (dynamic effects). Second, this study reveals that financial literacy and education have a significant complementary effect on rural households’ poverty reduction. The study distinguishes financial literacy from knowledge obtained through general education. Third, financial education is shown to significantly improve rural households’ financial literacy on and enhance poverty reduction. The policy implications of our findings include that the governments and financial institutions are also required to rigorously measure, understand and improve financial literacy. Reform of financial regulatory systems must include a national strategy for education projects and improvement in the quality and supervision of financial products and services.

This study examines the role of energy security in poverty reduction in the 12 poorest Asian economies from 2000 to 2019. We postulated an energy security index using principal component analysis. We adopted the system generalized method of a moment technique to manage endogeneity and dynamism in the model. For robustness, we applied a panel-corrected standard error (PCSE). We found a negative relationship between energy security and poverty reduction, suggesting that energy security helps reduce poverty. We conclude that energy security promotes sustainable poverty alleviation and recommends feed-in tariffs, net metering, tax credits, and energy resource diversification away from fossil fuels.

A key focus for entrepreneurial development strategies for many economies is to facilitate sustainable and inclusive growth that will create jobs and reduce poverty. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is confronted with institutional challenges in bringing these objectives into fruition. We draw from institutionalism and entrepreneurial governance theory to explore institutional context and challenges to entrepreneurial development and inclusive growth in Africa. We theorize that entrepreneurial governance and public policy must focus on policy direction, enterprise enabling institutions for nascent entrepreneurs, seed funding and local embeddedness to eliminate institutional voids. We provide a dynamic view of institutional context and offer a policy framework to uncover challenges to entrepreneurial emergence and sustainable development in Africa. The study submits that enabling entrepreneurial activities for inclusive growth and sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa requires the right institutional and supporting ecosystem.

Spatial designing of economic development with enhancing connectivity has become essential to pursue both sustained growth and the narrowing of development gaps. The issue of agglomeration and dispersion in China and its neighboring countries is an example of requiring such an approach. This paper introduces the Geographical Simulation Model (GSM) based on the new economic geography setting and presents illustrative simulations on Asian Highway No. 3 and Kyaukpyu deep sea port development in order to analyze the economic implication of developing hard and soft infrastructure as well as lowering national border barriers for inclusive growth at the sub-national level.

This paper discusses a possible case for industrial policy with special reference to the two emerging global giants, China and India. It begins with a clarification of the meaning of industrial policy, since not only does the term mean different things to different people, but the traditional and narrow definitions leads to significantly different conclusions than more recent, broader definitions. In the context of definition of the term, the paper also reviews the arguments for and against industrial policy, and discusses industrial policy in the context of globalization, including the evolution of multilateral trading rules. The main arguments of the paper discuss the Chinese and Indian economies, exploring in particular their past experience with variants of industrial policies. The similarities of the "China model" to past East Asian experience are explored, while the contrasts of India's development, and the distinction between liberalization and reform are examined. These two major country cases form the basis for a consolidation of recent conceptual ideas, where effective and successful industrial policy is viewed as part of a social contract, creating a pathway to inclusive growth.

We assess the ongoing reform efforts in Japan in terms of inclusive growth. We use prefectural level panel data to regress a measure of inclusive growth, and its components of both average income growth and income inequality, on macroeconomic and policy variables. Our analysis suggests that achieving the Bank of Japan’s 2% inflation target has a positive effect on average income growth, but an adverse effect on income equality. In contrast, achieving higher female labor participation, lower duality, and larger labor input — which are included in the package of structural reforms planned under Abenomics — is found to be effective in fostering inclusive growth. While implementation of those policies can improve higher average income growth, only the female labor participation is found to improve the equality as well. The main policy implication of our analysis is that full implementation of structural reforms — especially labor market reforms — is necessary to both foster growth and increase equality.

Living standards in China have greatly improved over the past few decades. Both sustained economic growth and an expansion of the social security system have contributed to a sharp reduction in the number of people in poverty. However, urban–rural inequalities remain large, and some of the poorest households are being left behind. Further reforms are needed to ensure that the benefits of future growth are shared and that marginalized groups have the opportunity to actively participate in the economy. In particular, policy settings should be adjusted to increase access to good quality education and healthcare for rural and migrant workers and to improve the portability of social security benefits. Changes to the social assistance system that raise work incentives and protect low-income households in poorer locations are also a priority. New spending measures can be funded by adjustments to the tax system which will, in themselves, benefit inclusiveness.

India's retail sector has recently been witnessing a rapid transformation in many aspects of the business by introducing scalable and profitable organized or modern retail models across different categories and, thereby, making way for new formats over the existing unorganized or traditional ones. While the organized retailing refers to trading activities undertaken by licensed retailers who are registered for sales tax, income tax, and routine regulatory checks, the unorganized retailing mostly includes low-cost neighborhood kiranas or mom-and-pop shops, kiosks, street markets, hand-cart and pavement vendors. This coexistence of two types of retailing has given rise to an organizational or institutional dualism in India's retail sector. Because of a perceived threat that small traders will bear the brunt of the organized retail growth by losing their business, the government's current regulatory policy has been very cautious. As a result, the growth of the Indian retail sector as a whole has increasingly become inclusive.

Belt and road initiative (BRI) is a comprehensive megaproject launched in 2013 by China to realize global connectivity, particularly in infrastructure, trade, and investment of the participating countries. This conceptual review paper examines the BRI’s role as a catalyst for poverty alleviation through its focus on human capital development (HCD) and technological innovation. In the context of the BRI projects, people-to-people exchanges, knowledge transfer, and various skill-building initiatives result in sustainable economic growth in the participating countries. The paper also examines the BRI’s role in driving technological development through investing in research and development (R&D) that ultimately leads to technology diffusion to modernize industries and reduce poverty. It also examines the interaction between human capital and technology as a cyclical relationship; these two complement each other in the cycle of productivity and inclusive development of an economy. A three-pillar model is also presented in the study to support the proper utilization and implementation of the BRI projects and maintain sustainability for inclusive development.

Episodes of economic growth that lead to reductions in poverty and inequality are relatively rare in developing countries. In this paper, we examine the institutional foundations of such growth episodes. We argue that the institutional factors that lead to accelerations in economic growth will be different from those that lead to growth maintenance and avoidance of growth decline, and that the institutional preconditions for growth accelerations suggest that these growth episodes may not be inclusive. We present empirical evidence drawn from descriptive and cross-country econometric analyses that support these theoretical propositions.

This brief paper a) focuses on important elements of the November Summit of G-20 Countries that resulted in the Washington Declaration; b) highlights problems with credit rating agencies and financial regulation; c) argues that the IMF is a laggard in being able to coordinate any major efforts to prevent, mitigate, or coordinate global issues; and d) identifies a number of important issues that deserve attention at the next G-20 Summit to be held in London on April 2^nd.

Social entrepreneurship, a prominent feature of 21st century society, brings innovative solutions to pressing social problems. Social enterprises use understandable and easily implementable ideas. They enroll local change makers. They seize opportunities others miss. India has 40% of the world’s poor. Rural India is lagging in terms of basic facilities of clean water, toilet facilities, education, and medical and health care. The girl child in India is also sidelined in terms of educational opportunities, health and nutrition. Very few women are promoted to top positions on account of the conventional perception of them being family nurturers rather than company leaders. The researchers seek to study how social enterprises can uplift farmers, rural craftsmen and girls in India. The researchers interviewed three entrepreneurs, namely Mustafa Harnesswala (agrotourism), Srikant Gayakwad (Selfie for Cause to promote poor girl child education) and Prasanna Priya Reddy (Saree Story helping skilled weavers fleeced by middlemen). They also accessed secondary sources to study how social enterprises can improve rural India. This study will help other aspiring entrepreneurs understand how they can contribute toward the inclusive growth of the country. It shows how to find opportunities and creatively use resources and technology in order to come up with cost-effective, eco-friendly products and services.

After the global financial tsunami of 2008 and economic recession of major developed economies in 2009, the growth engines of Asia, especially China and India, have recovered strongly. Mounting sovereign debts and national budget deficits in the west continued, however, to threaten the fragile global growth. Trans-Pacific trade imbalances, the role of the greenback as the principal reserve currency in the wake of a weakening Euro continued to draw attention and concern. Over the longer term, however, the focus of Asian policy makers should be inclusive growth and sustainable advancement and not economic growth per se. Rather, quality of life with attention to environmental protection and equitable progress through balanced regional development should carry more and more weight. Asian societies must ensure an adequate non-welfare type comprehensive social safety net and capacity building. In terms of evolving regional institutional architecture, the APEC-PECC nexus would continue to serve as the accepted, relevant and useful platform for pushing further the agenda for greater globalization in trade and deliberation on various reforms. At least half of the APEC-PECC members are also member of the G-20 Group. The former should reflect the voices and aspirations of those economies which are not members of G-20. The Global Governance Group which was initiated by Singapore in 2009 will help to strengthen governance for governments globally, especially for the smaller economies.