Information Technology and Economic Development

Information technology has already changed the face of many activities in organizational, economic, and societal domains, and holds strong promise for future development. Information Technology and Economic Development collects defining research on the impact information technology (IT) has on fields such as politics, education, sociology, and commerce, with a unifying focus on the benefits of IT for developing countries, which have not been clearly defined. By comprehensively treating the challenges and obstacles that must be overcome to achieve further IT advancement in the developing world, this book provides a must-have reference for libraries serving the international research community.

About the Author :
Yutaka Kurihara is a professor of international economics at Aichi University, Japan. He was a lecturer and associate professor at Koryo International College in Japan. He has taught economics courses at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. He majored in international economics, finance, and digital economy. He has published about 120 papers and some of them are in refereed international journals. His recently published books are Global Information Technology and Competitive Financial Alliances (2006, IGI Publishing), Economics Declaration (2006), Business & Policy Design in the Globalization (2003), and Intellectual Skills for Freshman (2003, in Japanese). He was a visiting fellow at the National Institute of Multimedia Education and the Institute for Advanced Research at Nagoya University, Japan. He has been the executive director of the Japan Association of Monetary Economics since 2006. Sadayoshi Takaya was educated at Kobe University, Japan, where he graduated in 1986 with a BA in economics, and graduated from the graduate course of economics in 1991. He also gained a PhD in 1998 from there. Between 1991 and 2003, he taught international macroeconomics and finance at Kinki University, Osaka, and since 2004, he has been a professor of international monetary systems and macroeconomics with the Faculty of Commerce, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan. His recent studies are in macroeconomic policies in Europe, monetary policies of European Central Bank, and the budgetary policies of member countries represented by the Stability and Growth Pact. He also conducts research in international financial architectures and the currency turmoil. He is coeditor of the book Global Information Technology and Competitive Financial Alliances (2006, Idea Group). Hisashi Harui , PhD, is a professor of monetary economics in the School of Economics at Kwansei Gakuin University (KGU) in Japan and has served as a senior executive director of the Japan Association of Monetary Economics since 2004. He teaches monetary economics and open macroeconomics at both the postgraduate and undergraduate levels. His current research interests are in the independence and transparency of central banks, lenders of last resort in relation to financial stability, financial literacy education and consumer protection, as well as international financial crises and the IMF’s (International Monetary Fund) function as the international lender of last resort. He has a wide teaching experience at the graduate school of the University of Lille 1 in France as well as at KGU for overseas students in open macro- and monetary economics, such as that in Japan’s economy, its international transactions, and its financial instability in 1990s. Hiroshi Kamae , PhD, is a professor of finance in the Graduate School of Commerce and Management at Hitotsubashi University, Japan. He teaches research methods and financial economics at the postgraduate level. Microstructure and time-series modeling of Japanese government bond (JGB) markets are some of his current research interests. He has a large number of publications in the econometric analysis of the cointegration of JGB markets, and in the efficiency of JGB futures markets. He published the books The Japanese Government Bond Secondary Markets (1993), Efficiency of the Japanese Financial and Monetary Markets (1999), and The Japanese Government Bond Markets and Information (2005). He is now a president of the Japan Society of Household Economics.