Technological change in developing countries: Trade-offs between economic, social, and environmental sustainability

Isabella Massa ()
Additional contact information
Isabella Massa: Overseas Development Institute

No 2015-051, MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT)

Abstract: Over the past years, the manufacturing sector has gone through a period of significant technological change. Technological innovation may bring significant socio-economic benefits and improve the environmental prospects, but it may also pose severe challenges to the economy, human well-being, and the environment. The aim of this paper is to review and discuss the existing literature on the economic/social, social/environmental, and environmental/economic trade-offs stemming from technological change in the manufacturing sector, with a focus on developing countries. The policy designs proposed in the literature to minimise the trade-offs arising from technological innovation and to achieve technology-driven sustained economic growth, social inclusiveness and environmental sustainability are also examined.

Keywords: technological change; developing countries; manufacturing; trade-offs; growth; inclusiveness; social inclusion; social exclusion; environmental sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O13 O14 O15 O33 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-12-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-env, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-pke and nep-res
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2015/wp2015-051.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unm:unumer:2015051

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MERIT Working Papers from United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ad Notten ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).