The Influence of Access to Technology on Inclusive Growth through Poverty Reduction

Abstract: In line with recent growth strategies as well as the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals, countries are faced with achieving sustainable and inclusive growth. While inclusive growth is imposed as important task for countries to accomplish, its conceptualization is rather puzzling and demands more attention. There is no consensus on the concept of inclusiveness and its major determinants let alone on how to operationalise it. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is twofold. The first part is dedicated to provide deep insight of the concept and point the main characteristics of an inclusive growth wave. This part provides discussion of the literature on inclusive growth together with analysis of the different approaches used in the different definitions of the concept. It finishes with an overview on the empirical attempts to measuring inclusive growth. The second part investigates the influence of technology, represented in form of economic infrastructure, on inclusive growth through the process of poverty reduction. This part of the thesis analyses the influence of access to technology on inclusive growth, where the poverty reduction is the variable in focus. Regression analysis based on a cross-country data set including more then 100 developing countries indicates that technology access help to reduce poverty. The results show that economic infrastructure have negative correlation with poverty, although the explanatory variables are not robust to changes in poverty measures and changes in specifications.