Technology Adoption and the Middle-Income Trap : Lessons from the Middle East and East Asia
This paper documents the existence of a "middle-income trap" for the Middle East and North Africa region. It argues that the economic woes of the Middle East and North Africa offer new insights into the debate on the trap which has thus f...
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/314521559247613834/Technology-Adoption-and-the-Middle-Income-Trap-Lessons-from-the-Middle-East-and-East-Asia http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31797 |
| Summary: | This paper documents the existence of a
"middle-income trap" for the Middle East and North
Africa region. It argues that the economic woes of the
Middle East and North Africa offer new insights into the
debate on the trap which has thus far focused on the East
Asia and Pacific region. The results are two-folds. First,
non-parametric regressions show that the average rate of
economic growth in the Middle East and North Africa has not
only been significantly lower than that in the East Asia and
Pacific region, but it has also tended to drop at an earlier
level of income. Second, econometric results point to Middle
East and North Africa having experienced a relatively slow
pace of technology adoption in general-purpose technologies.
The paper concludes that barriers to the adoption of
general-purpose technologies related to the lack of
contestability in key sectors could constitute an important
channel of transmission for the middle-income trap. |
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