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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -To review the literature on the relationship between growth, globalization, and poverty, and present empirical evidence on whether countries registering high growth rates do necessarily succeed in reducing the incidence of poverty. Design/methodology/approach -Notwithstanding data and methodological problems cited in the literature, this paper makes an effort to quantitatively examine the issue of statistical correlation between growth and poverty variables, through regressing the share of population in poverty on growth rates of countries for which data is available from World Bank surveys. Findings -The paper concludes that countries registering high growth rates do not necessarily succeed in reducing poverty, thereby, holding that a wide-ranging policy approach could be more effective in poverty reduction than the broad-based growth policy approach. Originality/value -The debate among academics and practitioners over the causal relationship between growth and poverty has not rendered any conclusive evidence that growth is a sufficient condition for reducing poverty, hence the difficulty facing policy makers on the most effective approach for poverty reduction. This paper is an attempt to contribute to this debate and assessing whether to embrace the broad-based growth or pro-poor growth policies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between research and development activities in Malaysia and the country's economic growth record. In particular, the paper lays out the changes in the growth model Malaysia adopted to make the transformation from an agriculture-based to a technology-based economy, thereby moving up the value chain. Notwithstanding data sparsity, this paper makes an effort to quantitatively examine the relationship between research and development and innovation activities in Malaysia by running simple linear regressions and multiple regressions to capture the impact of these variables on the GDP per capita variations. The paper notes that Malaysia has managed to achieve significant progress in its development efforts and in transforming its economy from an agrarian-based economy into a more diversified economy with a greater role for knowledge intensive activities, research and development, and innovation. Concluding that R&D and science and technology indicators have been associated with economic development indicators, the study proposes that further research be conducted to gauge the role of public sector intervention as well as the business sector R&D and innovative activities separately, and preferably at the sectoral level, where data would probably be more available than at the national level.

The aim of this article is to abridge the dearth of academic research on Saudi Arabia's privatization strategy, which is touted by government as key to empowering the business community in the largest economy in the Middle East and North Africa region. Whereas some contend privatization has moved at a slow pace and that the business model employed for privatizing public enterprises lacks commercial business efficiency standards, government retorts that, guided by an organized and sequential process, privatization has been successful. This article maintains that if privatization is to confer the benefits claimed for it and sway international investors equipped with modern managerial skills and technical know‐how, authorities need to accelerate privatization and subject enterprises to steadfast market competitive forces. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the political economy aspects of state-owned-enterprises (SOEs) governance and privatization in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In particular, the paper presents an overview of privatization in the region and examines the extent to which SOEs operate at arm's length from the public sector and the motives for this behavior. Showing empirically the region's relative reticence on privatizing public assets, the paper highlights the political economy aspects contributing to this impasse, offers Lebanon as a case study, and suggests a policy framework for successful reform of SOEs. Highlighting the lack of sustainable drives for SOEs reform and privatization in the region and the need for better governance systems based on the rule of law, property rights protection, and combating corruption, the paper proposes policy options to deal with privatization and improve the governance of SOEs through advocating a state-owned enterprise governance framework. This framework suggests subjecting SOEs to regulation and supervision of more than one government entity as opposed to only one ministry of custody. This should help to ensure a level-playing field in the industry and reduce the pressure on SOEs to heed to political pressures.