This volume represents a cornucopia of research studies coming out of an international conference held in Kigali, Rwanda in 2018. The essays comprise contributions on various microeconomic and macroeconomic policy angles that are crucial for a less developed economy to embark on a road to recovery to converge with the desired trajectory. The topics encompass a broad range of issues like the role of savings, capital formation, human capital, innovations, entrepreneurship, profit-shifting by multinational corporations, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and firms’ strategies for achieving sustained and balanced growth. The chapters are organized under three major themes based on the commonality of areas that they cover: (i) Macroeconomic Constraints: Monetary Policy, Investments, and Population; (ii) Firms’ Performance, SMEs, and Role of Entrepreneurship; and (iii) Entrepreneurship and Business Performance: Strategies and Policies. It has a collection of 12 empirical studies that havean overall focus on macroeconomic policies such as savings among the rural poor; sustained investments in and development of capital markets; role of entrepreneurial sustainability; role of innovations for firms’ performance; healthcare reforms; the benefits of technology, policy incentives such as tax benefits for promoting growth, and strategic considerations such as marketing or positioning strategies; export strategies; and productivity enhancement via processing and profit sharing. With contributions from 27 authors, the studies bring forth knowledge about the factors that influence well-being via better technologies and innovations favoring productivity, firm performance, and their positive externalities in the food, nutrition, and health sectors. Given the wide-ranging coverage of top-down and bottom-up approaches and strategies for development, the book offers insights for policy interventions necessary for Rwanda’s gradual transition from agriculture to an industrial transformation via manufacturing and service-led development without smokestack industries.
Author Biography:
Gouranga G. Das is Professor of Economics at the Department of Economics, Hanyang University, South Korea. Prior to this appointment, he worked as a Visiting Professor of Economics at Kyungpook National University, Korea and as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Florida. He obtained his M.Phil and PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia respectively. He has been visiting researcher in the University of Antwerp, Belgium and UNU-World Institute of Development Economics Research at Helsinki, Finland, and International Monetary Fund (IMF) at Washington DC, USA. Primary fields of his research focus, inter alia, on Trade and Development, Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, Technological Change, Migration, Outsourcing, and Environmental issues. He worked extensively on development issues related to globalization, technology transfer, human capital, role of institutions, and its impact on development and was recently engaged in Asian Development Bank (ADB)’s project on economic policy analysis in the context of Central Asian Economies. He serves in the editorial boards of peer-reviewed professional journals in Economics.
Johnson Bosco Rukundo is a lecturer at the department of Economics, school of Economics, College of Business and Economics, University of Rwanda. He holds a PhD in Economics from Jönköping University- Sweden and a Master’s Degree in Economic Policy Management from Makerere University (Uganda) as well as Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from the former National University of Rwanda. He has been in the academic profession for the last ten years teaching and undertaking research activities. Major research interests are in; Industrial organization, Economic development, Agriculture productivity, Employment and Growth, and Gender economic policy. His research publications are in the development and growth thematic area. He has aprofound experience in consultancies undertaken for both the private and public institutions as well as civil society organizations.
