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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