Yusuf, Shahid

Person:
Yusuf, Shahid

Fields of Specialization

industrial development; urbanization; innovation systems; higher education

Last updated: January 31, 2023

Biography

Shahid Yusuf is currently Chief Economist of The Growth Dialogue at the George Washington University School of Business in Washington DC. Prior to joining the Growth Dialogue, Dr. Yusuf was on the staff of the World Bank. During his 35-year tenure at the World Bank, Dr. Yusuf was the team leader for the World Bank-Japan project on East Asia’s Future Economy from 2000-2009. He was the Director of the World Development Report 1999/2000, Entering the 21st Century. Prior to that, he was Economic Adviser to the Senior Vice President and Chief Economist (1997-98), Lead Economist for the East Africa Department (1995-97) and Lead Economist for the China and Mongolia Department (1989-1993). Dr. Yusuf has written extensively on development issues, with a special focus on East Asia and has also published widely in various academic journals. He has authored or edited 27 books on industrial and urban development, innovation systems and tertiary education, which have been translated into a number of different languages.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 36

Private Enterprise after the Pandemic: A Review of Alternative Scenarios
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021-10-18) Lopez-Cordova, Ernesto; Yusuf, Shahid; Gregory, Neil
The Coronavirus(COVID-19) pandemic has had strong adverse impacts on the private sector in low- and middle-income countries. The future course of the pandemic remains highly uncertain, so consideration of alternative scenarios may be more helpful in assessing investment opportunities and designing policy responses. Based on private sector responses to the pandemic shock, and lessons learned from previous exogeneous shocks, this paper outlines two alternative scenarios for private enterprise during the recovery phase. The scenarios consider a stronger as well as a weaker global economic recovery, and both of these are based on the information available as of end-June 2021. Thus, the scenarios do not discuss developments that have taken place since June 30, which include the emergence of the Delta variant of Coronavirus (COVID-19), and the evolution of vaccine deployment around the world.
Promoting Innovation to Decarbonize Industry in China
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2022) Piatkowski, Marcin Miroslaw; Yusuf, Shahid; Wei, Wenting
China’s rapid growth since the mid-1990s has been largely propelled by investment in industry, infrastructure, and urbanization. However, such a growth model has proved to be highly energy intensive. Further economic progress will make it more difficult to reduce emissions. The objective of this policy note is to : (a) review the experience of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in introducing policies to support industrial decarbonization; (b) take stock of China’s progress in promoting industrial decarbonization, including through innovation; and (c) share policy recommendations based on international good practices on how to support accelerated adoption, diffusion, and invention of industrial decarbonization technologies that could help meet China’s peak carbon emissions target by 2030 and net carbon neutrality by 2060.
Building Human Capital: Lessons from Country Experiences – Singapore
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020-07-21) Yusuf, Shahid
Singapore has demonstrated that investing in human capital can have a high payoff and that nothing is impossible. Its example should inspire others to redouble their own efforts, not to replicate the model in its entirety necessarily but to take full advantage of the various lessons that can be learned from the arc of its successful development strategy. Many elements of the Singapore model are today considered conventional wisdom. While many developing countries have attempted to pursue similar strategies, few have fully succeeded in achieving similar results. This case study examines the policies, programs and processes Singapore has pursued from 1960 to the present to pull ahead of other economies. It identifies several factors that have undergirded Singapore’s successful implementation of education and health strategies. First, collecting and analyzing data to harness them for policymaking purposes. Second, able and incorruptible leaders who set high standards for themselves and others and have lived up to these standards. Third, Singapore created a meritocratic and largely non-politicized bureaucracy that could strategize, make far sighted policies, and implement them in a coordinated way. Coordinated implementation is key to delivering results. Fourth, national leadership-maintained harmony in a multi-ethnic society and proactively defused tensions. Fifth, Singapore attracted immigrants, both skilled and unskilled. Sixth, leadership mobilize domestic resources which played a critical role in financing infrastructure, housing, and other vital investments. Lastly, Singapore has never been comfortable to rest on its laurels and has always been open to ideas, eager to learn, ready to innovate, and leverage new technologies.
Accelerating Innovation in China’s Solar, Wind and Energy Storage Sectors
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-10-01) Kuriakose, Smita; Lewis, Joanna; Tamanini, Jeremy; Yusuf, Shahid
Green innovation can become a new driver of growth. It can spur economic growth by (a) enhancing productivity in traditional industries by reducing the energy use and lessening the environmental impact; (b) expanding new green industries, such as renewable energy, clean cars, and waste management; and (c) leapfrogging current technology to give rise to new industries. The Chinese government is hopeful that green innovation will substantially enhance growth, and this study explores that potential. The study analyzes a few specific sectors in which China has varying levels of advancement: wind, solar, and energy storage. These sectors have been chosen on the basis of (a) their central role in China’s ability to meet its green growth and greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals, (b) China’s continuing large public investment into innovation in these sectors, and (c) the expected availability of data to use in the analysis, including outputs such as patenting and inputs such as public and private investment in research and development (R&D). The government plays an essential role in establishing a conducive environment for green innovation. Given the high fixed costs associated, green sectors are even more dependent on the public sectors and favorable regulatory regimes. The recommendations provided in in this study aim to provide China with more comprehensive support for select green sectors.
Playing to Strength: Growth Strategy for Small Agrarian Economies in Africa
(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-08) Yusuf, Shahid; Kumar, Praveen
With urban industrialization on the scale achieved by East Asian economies looking increasingly less plausible, small economies in Africa need an alternative strategic approach to long-term growth. The purpose of this paper is to identify a growth strategy with the greatest potential for small, landlocked economies in East Africa. The paper uses Malawi, Rwanda, and Uganda as case studies to explore the potential for growth in agriculture, manufacturing, and tourism in these countries. The paper marshals extensive reasoning that while the manufacturing sector and exports of light labor or resource intensive manufactures could contribute a fraction of aggregate growth, it is agriculture, agribusiness, and services that will contribute the lion’s share because of an unprecedented convergence of technologies. Industrialized agriculture and agri-business could enable these countries to sustain rapid growth even in the face of climate change. Malawi, Rwanda, and Uganda, with some trying, can accelerate their convergence to the technological frontier to take full advantage of this promise. Undoubtedly, there are obstacles to transferring the advanced technologies wholesale to East Africa, but their eventual assimilation is a must and the removal of hurdles needs to be addressed. Extracting the maximum growth mileage will require policy action on multiple fronts.
Two Dragon Heads : Contrasting Development Paths for Beijing and Shanghai
(World Bank, 2010) Yusuf, Shahid; Nabeshima, Kaoru
In broad terms, the sources of economic growth are well understood, but relatively few countries have succeeded in effectively harnessing this knowledge for policy purposes so as to sustain high rates of growth over an extended period of time. Among the ones that have done so, China stands out. Its gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate, which averaged almost 10 percent between 1978 and 2008, is unmatched. Even more remarkable is the performance of China's three leading industrial regions: the Bohai region, the Pearl River Delta, and the Yangtze River (Changjiang) delta area. These regions have averaged growth rates well above 11 percent since 1985. Shanghai is the urban axis of the Yangtze River Delta's thriving economy; Beijing is the hinge of the Bohai region. Their performance and that of a handful of other urban regions will determine China's economic fortunes and innovativeness in the coming decades. The balance of this volume is divided into five chapters. Chapter two encapsulates the sources of China's growth and the current and future role of urban regions in China. The case for the continuing substantial presence of manufacturing industry for growth and innovation in the two urban centers is made in chapter three. Chapter four briefly examines the economic transformation of four global cities and distills stylized trends that can inform future development in Beijing and Shanghai. Chapter five describes the industrial structure of the two cities, identifies promising industrial areas, and analyzes the resource base that would underpin growth fueled by innovation. Finally, chapter six suggests how strategy could be reoriented on the basis of the lessons delineated in chapter four and the economic capabilities presented in chapter five.
Development Economics through the Decades: A Critical Look at 30 Years of the World Development Report
(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009) Deaton, Angus; Yusuf, Shahid; Dervis, Kemal; Easterly, William; Ito, Takatoshi; Stiglitz, Joseph E.
The World Development Report (WDR) has become such a fixture that it is easy to forget the circumstances under which it was born and the Bank's motivation for producing such a report at that time. In the first chapter of this essay, the authors provide a brief background on the circumstances of newly independent developing countries and summarize some of the main strands of the emerging field of development economics. This backdrop to the genesis of the WDR accounts for the orientation of the earlier reports. The thinking on development in the 1960s and 1970s also provides a baseline from which to view the evolution that has occurred since. From the coverage in the second chapter, the authors isolate a number of key issues common to several or all of the WDRs, and the author examine these issues individually at greater length in third chapter. The discussion in third chapter, which builds on the material in the WDRs, presents some views about how far development thinking and, relatedly, policy making have advanced relative to 30 years ago. It asks whether promoting growth, building institutions, tackling inequality and poverty, making aid effective, and defining the role of the state have been rendered more tractable policy wise by the knowledge encapsulated in the WDRs. Chapter four looks ahead and points to some of the big challenges that the Bank might explore through future WDRs and the value it can add through the knowledge acquired from its cross-country operations and research.
How Universities Promote Economic Growth
(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2007) Yusuf, Shahid; Nabeshima, Kaoru
This study was initiated in 1999 with the objective of identifying the most promising path to development in light of emerging global and regional changes. The purpose of this volume is to examine the role of universities in enhancing technological capability in Asian as well as other industrial countries. This volume also discusses the University-Industry Links (UIL) policies of national governments, corporations and sub national governments. Case studies, policies, strategies and conclusions for Switzerland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Japan, Thailand, United States, China, Singapore, and India are all individually examined. The volume also covers topics such as knowledge transmission, knowledge production, knowledge sharing, research and development, lessons learned, best practices and innovation initiatives and their roles for economic growth in relation to UIL.
Some Small Countries Do It Better : Rapid Growth and Its Causes in Singapore, Finland, and Ireland
(World Bank, 2012) Yusuf, Shahid; Nabeshima, Kaoru
This book is an outcome of a series of study visits to Singapore for African policy makers initiated by Jee-Peng Tan in 2005 with support from Tommy Koh in Singapore and Birger Fredriksen, Yaw Ansu, and Dzingai Mutumbuka at the World Bank. Starting in the 1960s-earlier if Japan is included-a number of East Asian economies began achieving growth rates well above the average and were able to maintain that pace until nearly the end of the 1990s. Countries, large and small, have struggled to imitate the industrial prowess of the East Asian pacesetters and to exploit the opportunities presented by globalization to expand exports. But approximating the East Asian benchmarks has proven difficult, and growth accelerations have tended to be remarkably transient.
Frontiers in Development Policy : A Primer on Emerging Issues
(World Bank, 2011-09-15) Bhattacharya, Rwitwika; Nallari, Raj; Yusuf, Shahid; Griffith, Breda
The book has been divided into five parts. Part one focuses on clarifying the basic concepts (that is, what are the appropriate goals of economic policy?), the challenges of low- and middle-income developing countries, and suggested frameworks for analysis. Part two moves from the macroeconomic to the microeconomic; it focuses on the private sector as the engine for growth and is balanced with 'softer' issues of the need for trust, accountability, and corporate social responsibility. Part three examines the growing consensus on the need to balance the public and private sectors' roles in the structural transformation of an economy. The discussion centers on newer thinking on industrial policy and public private partnerships in infrastructure. Part four focuses on human development policies in emerging topics, such as investment in early childhood development, health and nutrition, and quality of education. The discussion recognizes the roles of the state and the private sector. Finally, part five is dedicated to issues of global shocks and risks (including climate change and financial crisis), as well as systems and institutions that need to be in place to manage such risks, and the new thinking on social protection and insurance to mitigate adverse shocks.