Sharing the Benefits of Innovation-Digitization : A Summary of Market Processes and Policy Suggestions

Islam, Roumeen

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: EMPLOYMENT;    TECHNOLOGY;    PUBLIC POLICY;    DIGITIZATION;    COMPETITION POLICY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8406
RP-ID  :  WPS8406

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Governments play a very important rolein supporting innovation, managing the disruptive effects ofinnovation, and ensuring that the benefits of innovation arebroadly shared in the long run. This paper reviews theliterature on market mechanisms that translate innovationinto jobs and policies that are needed to improve outcomes.Although many countries now recognize the importance ofmodifying fiscal redistribution and insurance mechanisms todeal with the challenges of the digitization age, no countryhas yet done so feasibly. Developing country governments,having lower institutional capacity and usually fewerresources, will likely find it even more difficult to managethese changes. Global production patterns are likely tocontinue shifting. These shifts will depend on a combinationof factors: the direction of technological change, tradeagreements, global demand patterns, policies, and endowmentshifts. Developing countries may not follow the samestructural route of the past, through manufacturing, tohigher income, but with appropriate investments, they candevelop high-productivity service sectors. The policies thatare needed to harness the benefits of digitization span awide range of sectors: finance, competition policy, publicsupport to innovation, fiscal and regulatory incentives forinnovation, macroeconomic frameworks supporting demandgrowth, public support to education and reskilling,infrastructure provision for the digitization age, andsustainable fiscal insurance and redistribution systems.Finally, a lot more research needs to be done to understandhow the gig economy affects the welfare of workers ofdifferent types, its macro effects, and how digitizationinteracts with an aging or shrinking labor force in thegrowth process.