Purpose
The entire world is now witnessing the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is indeed altering the lives of the many in both developing and developed countries. Massive digital transformations are affecting the economies of those countries and are bringing with them many promised merits, as well as many challenges to face. This paper aims to examine the relationship between digital transformation (as a one facet of the fourth revolution and AI trends) on one side, and economic development, labor productivity and employment on the other side.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyzes different indices of digital transformation, and then uses the Digital Evolution Index (DEI) to study those relationships in a group of developing countries using feasible generalized least squares method (FGLS).
Findings
The results show a positive relationship between the digital transformation index and economic development, labor productivity and job employment. Females seem to gain more from digital transformation compared to males, as suggested by the positive relation with the first and the insignificant relation with the latter. The relationship with vulnerable employment is not significant; more evidence is still needed to judge whether digital transformation will have an impact upon the vulnerable employees in the economy.
Research limitations/implications
The paper focused on the impact of digital transformation upon total aggregate employment. Future research is still needed to examine the impact upon the structure of the labor market and the shift of occupations.
Originality/value
The paper aims to add to in the literature regarding the relationship between digital transformation, economic development, employment and productivity in the developing world. The implications of those relationships are of significant importance to policymakers regarding how much support should be given to encourage the digital transformation. At the same time, it shall also indicate how much social support policies are required – if any – to lessen the negative impact of digital transformation on the vulnerable groups inside the country. Another contribution is using a single composite index for digital transformation that is comparable across the chosen set of developing countries, instead of using single indices each capturing a different dimension of digital transformation.
This paper investigates the relationship between exchange rate volatility and export performance of the Egyptian economy for the period (1980-2016). Moving average standard deviation and conditional standard deviation from GARCH model are used to generate two different measures of exchange rate volatility. The co-integration results indicate the existence of a unique long-run relationship between the real value of non-petroleum exports (as well as the volume of total exports) and the GARCH measure of exchange rate volatility. Using a Vector Error Correction Model, it is found that the volatility of the real effective exchange rate has a significant negative effect on real exports, whereas the effect of the level of real effective exchange rate itself, is not found to be statistically significant. Relevant policy implications are derived from these results.
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