Foreign direct investment (FDI) is becoming increasingly critical to the economies of developing countries, in part due to a major expansion in the scope of global value chains (GVCs), whereby lead firms outsource parts of their production and services activities across complex international networks. FDI delivers important contributions including investment, employment, and foreign exchange. However, it is FDI's spillover potential—the productivity gain that may result from the diffusion ...

This book designed for policymakers academics and researchers and SEZ program practitioners provides the first systematic and comprehensive analysis of SEZ programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is the result of detailed surveys and case studies conducted during 2009 in ten developing countries including six in Sub-Saharan Africa. The book provides quantitative evidence of the performance of SEZs and of the factors which contribute to that performance highlighting the critical importance not jus...

This toolkit provides a framework, guidelines, and practical tools for conducting an analysis of a country's trade competitiveness in terms of growth and share performance, diversification, and quality. It aims to facilitate the identification of the main constraints to improved trade competitiveness and the policy responses to overcome these constraints.

China and India's new-found interest in trade and investment with Africa - home to 300 million of the globe's poorest people and the world's most formidable development challenge - presents a significant opportunity for growth and integration of the Sub-Saharan continent into the global economy. Africa's Silk Road finds that China and India's South-South commerce with Africa is about far more than natural resources, opening the way for Africa to become a processor of ...

This publication highlights Mozambiques remarkably strong growth over the two decades since the end of the civil war in 1992, as well as the major challenges that remain for the country to rise out of poverty and further its economic development. Chapters explore such topics as the role of megaprojects and their relationship to jobs and growth; infrastructure and public investment; Mozambique's quest for inclusive growth; developing the agricultural sector; and building a social protection f...

Governments often use direct subsidies or tax credits to encourage investment and promote economic growth and other development objectives. Properly designed and implemented, these incentives can advance a wide range of policy objectives (increasing employment, promoting sustainability, and reducing inequality). Yet since design and implementation are complicated, incentives have been associated with rent-seeking and wasteful public spending.This collection illustrates the differen...

With the end of the 1990s economic boom, The Race to the Bottom deftly explores how the United States has entered a no-win global competition in which the countries with the lowest wages, weakest workplace safety laws, and toughest repression of unions win investment from the U.S. and Europe. Tonelson analyzes how the entry of such population giants as China, India, and Mexico into the global market has accelerated the erosion of wages and labor standards around the world. And he ...

The World Bank Group is a vital source of financial and technical assistance to developing countries around the world. Its focus is on helping the poorest people in the poorest countries by using its financial resources, staff, and extensive experience to aid countries in reducing poverty, increasing economic growth, and improving quality of life. In partnership with more than 100 developing countries, the Bank Group is striving to improve health and education, fight corruption, boost agricul...

The role of industry in low income countries is important. Industry is good for growth, job creation, and poverty reduction. All of these factors depend on the size and the rate of growth of industry. Africa doesn’t have enough industry to reach the Sustainable Development Goals for growth, job creation, and poverty reduction. Africa’s share of global manufacturing has fallen from about three percent in 1970 to less than two percent in 2010. Why is there so little industry in Africa?

Sustainable infrastructure development is vital for Africa's prosperity. And now is the time to begin the transformation. This volume is the culmination of an unprecedented effort to document, analyze, and interpret the full extent of the challenge in developing Sub-Saharan Africa's infrastructure sectors. As a result, it represents the most comprehensive reference currently available on infrastructure in the region. The book covers the five main economic infrastructure sectors info...

Americans have long been ambivalent toward foreign direct investment in the United States. Foreign multinational corporations may be a source of capital, technology, and jobs. But what are the implications for US workers, firms, communities, and consumers as the United States remains the most popular destination for foreign multinational investment?Theodore H. Moran and Lindsay Oldenski find that foreign multinational firms that invest in the United States are, alongside US-headqua...

This book is designed to clarify India's interests in the WTO Doha Development Agenda and to provide a blueprint for its strategy in the Doha Round negotiations. The individual chapters span the Doha Development Agenda and include: calculations of the economic effects on India and other major trading countries/regions of the Uruguay Round negotiations and the prospective Doha Agenda negotiations; the implications for India and other exporting countries of the abolition of the Multifibre Agree...