Issue 4: October 2000

 

Developing countries must 
invest in IT - new book 

The use of information technology (IT) is now so widely spread in the world economy that no country can ignore any longer the need to invest in these technologies if it wants to improve the standard of living of its citizens, according to a new book from UNU's World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU/WIDER).

In recent years, information technology has had a strong influence on economic growth in industrial countries and at least some newly industrialised countries. However, developing countries seem to have neither invested in IT not benefited from such investments to the same extent as industrial countries.

Investment in infrastructure, physical capital and education is an old policy prescription in the economics of development, says editor Marri Pohjola in his introduction to Technology, Productivity and Economic Growth: International Evidence and Implications for Economic Growth. What is new in the analyses presented in this book is the recommendation that the information technology component of these investments should be high.


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