Christine Zhen-Wei Qiang

• PhD
• World Bank

The authors adopt a holistic framework of China's e-development (informatization), covering the enablers of the knowledge economy and the application of information and communication technology (ICT) to government, business, and society. They identify the challenges facing government, business, and rural informatization, the growing digital divide...

Received 9 August 2009Accepted 9 October 2009Responsibility for all errors, omissions, and opinions rests solely with the author. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of...

This report aims to help policy makers take advantage of the opportunities presented by increased cross-border trade in IT services and IT-enabled services (ITES). It begins by defining the two industries and estimating the potential global market opportunities for trade in each. Then it discusses economic and other benefits for countries that succ...

China's recent economic growth has expanded industrialization and urbanization, upgraded consumption, increased social mobility, and initiated a shift from an economy based on agriculture to one based on industry and services. However, more than half of China's people still live in rural areas—where average income per capita is less than a third of...

We investigate the determinants of regulatory reforms during 1990–98 in 50 developing countries. We find that the reforms are attributable to differences in the configurations of interest groups and in the political structure—in particular, the decision-making mechanisms and the ideology of the legislature. Regulatory reforms are more likely in cou...

This paper uses a rich collection of household surveys to investigate the wage differential between the public and private sectors in 13 Latin American countries. It also studies how the sector of employment affects the gender wage gap. Contrary to what is commonly thought, it is found that, in the majority of Latin American countries, there is a p...

It is increasingly recognized that the level and quality of infrastructure may have an important causal relationship with inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI). In recent literature, information infrastructure has been singled out as a potentially significant source of productivity increases and economic growth, in part through its role in att...

The worldwide development of information and communication technology (ICT) has accelerated dramatically over the past decade. Increased ICT production and use has the potential to influence economic growth positively. This paper focuses on the linkage between ICT and output growth and summarizes the findings in the literature on the contribution o...

This paper examines the determinants of the marriage timing decisions of young men and women in China. We pay particular attention to distinguishing three explanations for marriage timing: the independence hypothesis, which emphasizes growing economic independence; the career cycle hypothesis, which highlights the difficulty of school-to-work trans...

This paper studies the marriage timing decisions of young men and women in China. The data set is a sample of Chinese couples with ample variations in marriage market features, personal characteristics, and regional patterns of growth. Exploiting the differences in marriage timing among the couples in our data set, we find empirical results that ar...

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are increasingly seen as integral to the development process. This paper reviews some of the evidence for the link between telecommunications and the Internet and economic growth, the likely impact of the new ICTs on income inequality and anecdotal evidence regarding the role of the Internet in impr...

The information revolution has spread globally, but reliable data are not readily available on worldwide information infrastructure investment, growth, revenues, and breakdown between developed and developing countries. As a step towards overcoming this shortfall, in 1999 infoDev commissioned Pyramid Research to review and collect data in 60 countr...

Since the mid-1990s China has devoted considerable resources to developing its informatization strategy and conducted extensive research to determine the appropriate framework and goals for building an information society.1 Strong leadership at the national, provincial, and municipal levels, combined with a sustained, long-term focus from the highe...