When Economic Development Plans Stall: What to Fix First in 2026
You're staring at a spreadsheet with 14 tabs, a consultant report nobody read, and a board that wants a '2026 strategy' by next month. Sound familiar?...
Beyond Growth Metrics: Unlocking Structural Transformation for Resilient Economic Systems
Expert analysis on industrial policy, institutional reform, and capital allocation strategies for seasoned professionals navigating complex development landscapes.
Articles — Page 3
What to Fix First When Your Export Basket Diversifies but Your Fiscal Base Doesn't
So your country finally did it. You broke out of the commodity trap. Copper, cocoa, or crude oil no longer dominate your export earnings. Now you're s...
When a Productivity Corridor Stops Being Resilient: What to Fix First
Every few years, a regional development board convenes to pick the next productivity corridor. The slide deck is clean. The consultants talk about mul...
When Factor Mobility Hides the Real Cost of Institutional Misalignment
Here's a puzzle that keeps development economists up at night. You see a country with strong GDP growth, rising foreign investment, and workers moving...
Structural Transformation Paths
Structuring Capital Deepening in Fragile States: A Decision Workflow for When Institutions Lag
Capital deepening is supposed to be boring. You invest more per worker, productivity ticks up, and growth follows — a mechanical function of savings a...
Structural Transformation Paths
When Infrastructure Connectivity Becomes a Barrier: Why Faster Roads Can Widen Spatial Gaps
If you work in regional development or transport planning, you have seen the pitch before: build a road, bridge, or rail line to a lagging region, and...
Structural Transformation Paths
Choosing a Regional Specialization Path Without Trapping the Labor Market in Low-Value Niches
You have a region—maybe a city, a province, a cluster of counties. You want to pick a specialization that creates good jobs, raises incomes, and doesn...
Structural Transformation Paths
When Structural Transformation Outpaces Fiscal Capacity — Which Reforms Break First
A finance ministry official once told me: We planned the transformation like a five-year plan. We funded it like a three-month budget. That gap — betw...
Structural Transformation Paths
What to Fix First When Structural Transformation Creates a Skills Mismatch That Won't Self-Correct
Structural transformation doesn't announce itself with a memo. One quarter your workforce is humming along; the next, entire job categories go quiet w...
Spatial Inequality Metrics
What to Fix First When Your Inequality Metrics Conflict with Growth Data
Here is the moment nobody warns you about: you have built a beautiful dashboard. GDP per capita is climbing. Unemployment is falling. Everything green...
Spatial Inequality Metrics
Choosing a Spatial Equity Benchmark Without Anchoring to the Wrong Dimension
Every spatial equity analysis starts with a benchmark—a yardstick that says what fair looks like. Pick the wrong one, and your policy recommendations ...
Spatial Inequality Metrics
When Spatial Inequality Metrics Hide the Cost of Internal Migration
You run the numbers. Gini drops 0.02. Theil index improves. Your map shades greener in the receiving region. But that green hides red. Someone left a ...