It is believed that the more backward a country, the great potential for her to catch up. The history of the modern economic growth, which started in the United Kingdom in 1780, seems to have indicated this. But why has only a tiny group of countries managed to achieve modern economic growth? The neo-classical growth theory, based on the assumptions of constant return to scale, law of diminishing return and perfect competition, failed to explain the key causes of economic growth. The post-war experience of some countries, particularly Japan and South Korea, indicates that some things other than the increase in weighted labour and capital inputs, as claimed by the neo-classical growth theory, may have played a more important role in their rapid economic growth. Technological progress is now regarded by many economists as the most important contributing factors to economic growth. Technological advance generates economic growth through its effect on total factor productivity. However, where the new technologies come from, raining down from heaven as many neo-classical economists suggest, or resulting from the intentional investment as the new growth theory shows, has been an important controversial issue over the past three decades. It is hoped by many that the new growth theory could help to open the 'balck [sic] box' in the near future. This thesis is to examine what role technological advance has played in the economic growth of Japan and South Korea over the past three decades or so. A comparative analysis of China, Japan and South Korea in technology transfer, adaptation and diffusion will also be one of the main tasks of the study. Through this, the study tries to identify the key factors responsible for the successful assimilation and diffusion of new technologies in the Japanese and Korean economies. The main aim of the thesis is not to test the new growth or new trade theories. However, the key elements of the key elements of the new theories have been analysed throughout the study. The present study goes further beyond the areas that have been raised in the new theories. The cultural factor, country's socio-economic background, role of government, role of industrial policies and the character of different institutions will also be examined. The findings of the present study are: economies of scale and external economies have been the important factors for Japan and South Korea to have gained some comparative advantages in petrochemical and electronics industries. Rapid and efficient transfer and diffusion of new technologies have been the driving forces behind the fast economic growth both in Japan and South Korea during the post war period. A highly competent and efficient government, appropriate economic and industrial policies, a disciplined and well educated labour force and close co-operation between the government and the business community and between the management and employees have also played important role in the Japanese and Korean economic success.

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This study aims to establish the relationship between religious adherence and economic growth in South Africa. As an area of growing interest in academic circles, much of the literature on the subject reports a negative relationship between religion and economic growth, with some research aiming to prove a causational link between the two. In light of this research, the aim of this study is to promote a public policy debate around state support for organised religion, primarily in the form of tax exemption, considering the growing body of evidence that suggests the sector may impact negatively on the South African economy. This study separates respondents into three distinct groups: religious participators, believers but not formal participators, and those who are neither strong believers nor participators in religious activities. Data gathered from the 2005 World Values Survey was analysed, comparing findings from respondents in South Africa to those of the other countries sampled, and looking at individual proxies for economic growth (such as income) relative to religious adherence. The outcome showed that there are significant differences in the economic behaviour of each distinct group, with global findings differing significantly from South Africa. This raises the possibility of several future studies. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Poverty remains, despite efforts by the advanced economies to address it, a constant challenge in the world, particularly in Africa. The African continent has been riddled with poverty for decades. The factors that lead to and sustain poverty in African countries are varied and differ from country to country. However, historical factors, political instability, poor economic policies, a lack of education, disease, population growth, as well as climatic and environmental factors are key examples of some of these contributing factors. Today, Uganda is considered to be one of the poorer countries on the African continent, and for decades, despite large amounts of foreign aid inflow, there has been no significant improvement in relation to poverty reduction. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether foreign aid contributed to economic growth in Africa, with Uganda serving as a case study. Using data from 1987 to 2011, the Autoregressive Distributed Lag was employed to test for the existence of the long-run Augmented Dickey-Fuller test for stationarity and the Ordinary Least Square regression analysis was used to test for the relationship between the variables. The results show that foreign aid has a significant negative effect on economic growth in the long run. The lesson for policymakers is that aid can improve economic growth in the long run, if and when facilitated by quality institutions. Other policy recommendations are included

This dissertation examines the impact of export and import components on economic growth in 18 Sub-Saharan African countries over the period of 1995-2015. This study uses a neoclassic economic growth model containing GDP, export components, import components, export concentration index, capital and labour force as variables of analysis. The results of fixed effects estimations show that both exports and imports contribute significantly to economic growth. On a specific level, growth in raw material exports, and not manufactured exports, is significantly associated with GDP growth while growth in manufactured imports, and not raw material imports, is significantly associated with GDP growth. The export concentration index is found to have no significant relationship with GDP growth. In addition, the results find that capital formation has a more significant influence on economic growth than labour does.

This paper investigates a simultaneous impact of monetary and fiscal policies on economic growth in a single model. The data for 21 OECD countries covering the period 1970-2009 is gathered for our study of policy effect on economic growth. A quadratic specification method is employed by constructing a relationship between economic growth and several policy variables in order to find optimal values for government debt level, tax revenues and interest rate that lead to the highest economic growth, which is a contribution of this paper. Furthermore, a threshold method is exploited to determine the highest growth rate at different tax and interest rates given a particular debt level. Another distinctive feature of this research is uttered in simultaneous application of both a quadratic specification method and a threshold method in the same paper which has never been done before. Having analysed methodological problems of previous studies, we employ a state-of-art advanced estimation technique which ensures a robustness of stated conclusions. According to the results, the highest economic growth performance is achieved when total tax revenue reach 23.75% of GDP and when a government debt level does not exceed 41% of GDP.

No / In this chapter we lay out a broad outline of Rostow’s Stages growth theory. Rostow in his seminal work identified five different stages of economic growth - the traditional society, the preconditions for take-off, the take-off, the drive to maturity, and the age of high mass consumption. Interest in Rostow’s stages theory was in 1960s and persists even now as researchers are still intrigued by the ideas and notions laid out in Rostow’s theory (Costa et al. 2016 a,b; McCartney 2018; Solivetti 2005). Interestingly in today’s world, the theory is being applied to different contexts and scenarios such as application of theory to environment, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor etc (Kesgingoz, H. and Serkan 2016; McCartney 2018). The stages of growth theory covered a broader spectrum of issues ranging from economic, social and political to US-Russia (the then USSR) cold war and their dominance at the global level. In this chapter we restrict ourselves to economic aspects of stages theory only. / The chapter is published under the title: 'Stages of Growth'

Published Article / A key lever for unlocking the economic potential of any nation is a competitive tooling industry. Like other sectors of the South African economy, the tooling industry has experienced a marked decline in the skills base and requisite expertise needed in a globalised economy. Furthermore, over the past few years, there have been low levels of capital investment among tooling companies in South Africa to keep pace with global trends. This paper will highlight the Department of Science and Technology's (DST) response to the unacceptable decline in the competitiveness and innovative capacity of the tooling industry in the country. Through the Tshumisano Trust, its implementation agency, the DST has launched three Institutes for Advanced Tooling (IATs) over the past year. These institutes are meant to stimulate the development of innovative products, processes and services through tooling to accelerate economic growth in South Africa. The potential impact of IATs on high growth and innovation-driven industries such as automotives and chemicals will be discussed.

This research study proposes, through case study research, to uncover and understand some of the business challenges and obstacles faced by entrepreneurs and SME business owners in Mozambique, with a view to developing a set of recommendations aimed at both the priate sector sole players and the overnment policy makers. / Through this report, the researcher sets out to understand the challenges to doing business in rural Mozambique by documenting and discussing the case study of Vilanculos Madeira Lda. With this understanding and in the context of the literature, the researcher then tries to develop some practical recommendations for both the government and the private sector, such that these challenges can be reduced and further Small and Medium Enterprise growth can continue. The literature indicates that Mozambique’s economy is growing rapidly, but that there are a number of challenges to doing business in the country for both local and foreign investors (the VM case study supports this notion). In the literature review, the researcher has documented a number of other relevant and interesting case studies of how similar challenges to doing business have been tackled by other countries around the world, and it is these case studies that form the grounds to some of the recommendations of this report. It is a conclusion of the researcher that a large number of the challenges identified stem from shortfalls in the current regulatory environment of Mozambique, particularly how these regulations are implemented and enforced. To assist with structuring the report, the researcher has used the 10 areas of business regulation as described in the World Bank’s “Doing Business” series of reports. As such, the recommendations aimed at the government and policy makers of Mozambique are presented in the above mentioned structure and speak of the various regulatory reforms that the researcher feels need to take place to improve the situation. It is in this context that the case studies of reform that are documented in the literature review prove to be so informative. It is from these case studies that the reader is led to understand that the most important element of correcting Mozambique’s challenging business environment emanates from creating the case for change. If the government and its leaders do not see the need for change, the battle is surely lost. However, if government does see need for change and they appoint the right kinds of leadership to lead the change, there is no reason why Mozambique could not overcome the documented challenges and become a shining example of reform in Africa. In the context of the private sector, the researcher has concluded that the best the business owners and managers can do is to learn to comply and work within the limits imposed by the current regulatory setup, as there is not much opportunity for the private sector to change the regulatory environment. Therefore the recommendations to the private sector are more geared towards compliance and how to achieve it, whilst also working with organised structures like chambers of business to help create the case for change.

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