Sustainable Development and the Digital Divide Among OIC Countries

Undoubtedly, digital technology (DT) has revolutionalised information and communications technology (ICT) base of the global economy, which has impacted tremendously the socio-economic, political, cultural and scientific development in the majority of the world’s economies. The chapter examines “digital divide” in a broader perspective of information and communications technologies (ICTs) that encompass not only computers, but also telephone (line and cellular), television (TV), radio etc. It is an open secret that ICTs have played and will continue to play a pivotal role in sustaining economic development in the developed countries. Through ICTs, creating, storing and sharing enormous volume of information with relative ease in almost all the spheres of human endeavour have been made possible. The power inherent in ICT that can break up barriers and boundaries holding countries, continents and businesses miles apart can never be over-emphasized. Despite the attendant benefits of ICTs, there are still deep-seated ICT inequalities both within and among the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) member countries. This chapter investigates the depth of the existing digital divide among the OIC member countries and to unearth the possible obstacles. Finally, some policy recommendations have been offered towards the end of the chapter.

Does Financial Liberalization and Trade Openness Promote Growth in South Asia?

This chapter examines the hypotheses that trade liberalization and financial liberalization jointly enhances economic growth in the four South Asian countries including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka for the period 1970-2007 using bounds testing approach to cointegration. The results suggest that in the long-run except for Bangladesh, financial development plays no role in promoting economic growth in these countries. Furthermore, the results suggest that trade openness plays a significant role in promoting economic growth in Bangladesh and India, while exerts negative effect on Pakistan and no effect on Sri Lanka. The share of domestic investment influences real output significantly in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. In the long- as well as short-run two-way causality between real output, trade openness, share of investment and inflation rate exists for the case of Bangladesh and India. For the case of India two-way causality between finance and growth exists in the short-run. For the case of Pakistan, there is an evidence of long-run causality between real output, finance, trade openness, share of investment and inflation rate. However, in the short-run, two-way causality between real output, trade openness and share of investment is existed and one-way causality between inflation rate, trade openness and share of investment is also observed. No evidence of short-run causality between finance and growth and vice versa for Pakistan has been seen. Finally, for Sri Lanka, an evidence of long-run causality between real output, finance, trade openness and investment share has been found. In the short-run one-way causality between finance-growth, trade-finance, trade-growth and trade-investment has been obtained. These mixed results suggest that the authorities may focuses more and more on the trade liberalization. In addition, there is a need to further deepen the banking and stock markets and provide investment friendly environment to enhance domestic investment which, in turn, promotes economic growth.

Evaluating the Internal Capabilities and External Linkages of the Philippine IT-Enabled Services (ITES) Industry

Over the past five years the Philippine IT-enabled services industry has grown tremendously, fuelled primarily by strong global demand. The main competitiveness drivers of the Philippines as an attractive location for offshore IT-enabled services are well documented: highly skilled, English proficient workforce; low labour costs; cultural affinity towards the United States; reliable telecommunications infrastructure; and business-friendly policies. It is this rare combination of resources that has attracted many FDIs to locate their outsourcing operations in the Philippines which has made the country a prime location for customer contact service centres and business process outsourcing. This chapter examines the internal capabilities and external linkages of the Philippine ITES industry based on an empirical study. It focuses on how these various capabilities and linkages play a significant role in facilitating the ITES industry’s growth and long term sustainability.

An Empirical Analysis of Indices and Factors of ICT Use by Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Japan

This chapter attempts to extract factors which promote the introduction and usage of ICT by SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises) through the method of mail surveys and in-depth interviews conducted in two of the largest SME clusters in Japan, Higashi-Osaka and Ohta Ward, Tokyo. The questionnaire was sent to more than 6,000 SMEs there, and received nearly 1,200 replies. Questions are related to company characteristics and purposes for ICT use. Moreover, the followings indexes are selected which present the degree of ICT use by SMEs: (i) software that contributes to efficient utilization of managerial resources; and (ii) Internet usage. Based on these data, factors are extracted by utilizing the regression methods such as OLS, logit and probit estimation. Among them, the most important elements in promoting ICT use are found to be a future-oriented vision for SMEs such as expectations for restructuring business process through ICT, and managerial orientations.

Natural Resources Accounting for Sustainable Development

Economic growth has been conventionally looked upon as the measure for the development of society, while ignoring the other aspects viz., human development, natural resources, environment and ecology. In the conventional accounting of economic development, the value of services and goods provided by natural resources like air, water, land and biota are ignored; neither any attempts are made to monitor and account for the changes in natural resources and environment. For the economic development to be sustainable, the environmental costs have to be limited and to be growing at slower pace than the economic gains. In this chapter, an attempt is made to outline the importance of using Natural Resource Accounting (NRA) for sustainable development through an attempt to estimate the environmental costs and benefits, and also to compare with economic growth in the case of India. This chapter highlights the potential of using NRA to make decisions for sustainable development through policies for conservation, management and development of natural resources.

Why The Already Difficult Task of Identifying Sources of Growth Has Become Even More Challenging?

This chapter is a brief account of what we now observe in the growth literature in light of the developments in the voluminous empirical works on economic growth. It is argued that while the empirical knowledge has advanced adequately, little progress has been made in the growth theory since the classic works of Solow. Therefore it can be said that growth economist and policy makers are still confused on how to raise the steady state growth rate of output and some of these confusions are due to our own experiments.

Does Information and Communication Technologies Sustain Economic Growth? The Underdeveloped and Developing Countries Case

This chapter tests the impact of ICT on economic growth for underdeveloped and developing countries by using a panel dataset for the period of 1995-2006. The authors first develop the theory of the relationship between ICT and economic growth. They show that ICT-capital has a positive effect both on long-run and transitional income per capita, if it is considered as a factor of production. Next, the authors estimate a panel data set with 131 underdeveloped and developing countries under the assumption that ICT is one of the determining factors of economic growth. They find that ICT has positive and significant effect on economic growth even after the use of some control variables.

Governance-Based Regional Development and E-Government

The notion of new regional development is built on the model of governance in Turkey. E-government has some serious potential of contributing to the implementation of this new notion of regional development. In this context, the aim of this chapter is to discuss the current state of the concept of regional development in Turkey and to analyze the contributions of e-government to the notion and applications of new regional development. Within this framework, initially, paradigmatic shift in regional development is analyzed. And then, the role and effect of e-government is explicated within the triangular relationship between development, good governance and e-government in socio-economic development. Subsequently, the notion of regional development in Turkey and its application is introduced from a historical perspective and the very recently adopted notion of new regional development is explained. Finally, the potential contributions of the e-government applications to this new notion of regional development in Turkey are analyzed.

Regional Innovation Strategies

Regional innovation strategies which emerged during the mid 90s and were implemented especially in the developing regions of the world are significant for the transformation of both the knowledge produced in the regional scale and the added value it created into competitive power in the national and global scale. These strategies which have successfully been implemented in different parts of the world are a great opportunity for a country like Turkey which has a large young population and stands out among the other developing countries with her strategic location and potentials for human resources, agriculture and commerce. Focusing on these strategies and exploring national and regional innovation systems, this chapter both investigates the leader implementations in Europe and examines the first implementations of regional innovation strategies in Turkey. This chapter suggests that by transforming her regional innovation skills into products and services that have added value, Turkey will have a potential to achieve rapid social and economic development and therefore increase her significance for the national and international innovative investors.

The Potentials and Pitfalls of the Information Society Project in Turkey

This chapter aims to assess policies regarding information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Turkey within the last five years. The focus of the chapter will be on digital divide: Although, ICTs in general, and the Internet in particular, have become an essential part of everyday life in Turkey, access to the opportunities provided by these technologies has not been distributed equally. The divides with respect to social class, geographic location, gender and age cripple the potential benefits of these policies. In addition, the programs implemented so far have been highly influenced by the global policy agenda; in a sense, adapting the “information society” vision advanced globally to the local context. In order to actualize an equitable and sustainable transformation process, there is further need to understand the nuanced picture Turkey’s social conditions present. This chapter will examine the ways in which information society project has been modeled in Turkey, the policy paradigms that shaped its direction and finally, where they fell short and where they offer potentials.