Book Chapter
Capitalism and African Business CulturesFrom the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
Part of Journal Special Issue Sustainability of External Development Finance
The survey on the School-to-Work Transitions of University Graduates in Mozambique aims to respond to the concerns of the Government of Mozambique and development partners with respect to youth employment in the country. The focus is on the...
Before now, there has been no systematic study of the transition of university students as they finish their studies and enter the labour market. This Policy Brief summarises the findings of a baseline survey of such university students, who form the...
This paper frames the transition towards clean energies as a sequential process of instrument choice and instrument change. First, regulators decide how to initiate the transition away from fossil energies. Here, support policies for renewable...
O Inquérito à Transição Ensino-Emprego dos Finalistas Universitários visa dar resposta às preocupações do Governo de Moçambique e parceiros de desenvolvimento sobre o emprego jovem no país. O foco é aqui colocado na transição dos jovens, da educação...
Using a specially designed survey instrument in combination with a representative sample of Vietnamese enterprises, we explore firm-level efficiency effects of corporate social responsibility. We find a positive relationship between adoption of...
Private consumption capabilities form only one facet of comprehensive living standards assessments, but they are an important facet whose measurement should be done well. Measurement is complex due to a multitude of methodological choices, which...
The significance of commodity price instability for the economic development of commodity-exporting countries has been perhaps the dominant theme in the postwar literature on the "commodity problem". One of the contending postwar views of the...
The Nigerian power sector reform is necessitated by the chronic poor performance of the sector and has as its compass the 2005 Electric Power Sector Reform Act and the Roadmap for Power Sector Reform 2010. Implementing reform has resulted in...
The way property rights affect land rental market behaviour is one of the key issues in development economics. In this paper we show the relationship between land use certificates and the compensation landlords receive when they lease out land to...
This paper analyses the dramatic spread of education and healthcare in Asia and also the large variations in that spread across and within countries over 50 years. Apart from differences in initial conditions and income levels, the nature of the...
The benefits from the New Economy should accrue as improvements in productivity and economic growth. But while the use of information and communication technology (ICT) seems to have had a substantial impact on the performance of the United States...
The mechanism and dynamics of the recent economic developments in Poland determine the mechanism and the implementation methods for adjustment programmes and stabilization policies. The syndrome of crisis phenomena in Poland is composed of three...
Three changes in conditionality of loans are proposed in this study, in order to improve the relations between developing country borrowers and international lending agencies, and make the international cooperative effort at development and stability...
This paper examines how the interaction of social trust and institutions, such as land administration, affects household economic decisions in Vietnam. Using a panel dataset of rural households from 2008 to 2014, we show that negative consequences of...
Rwanda is one of the countries with the best strategies for women empowerment and gender equality in Africa and globally. Nonetheless, some inequalities exist especially in education attainment. This study investigates the gender gaps in business...
Few non-western countries have reached the general prosperity of Western Europe and North America in the past two centuries. The core–periphery structure of the world economy created in the early decades of the Industrial Revolution has proved robust...
This paper attempts to understand Asian Drama in the context of the development debates of its time, and in terms of the sensibilities that Gunnar Myrdal—the brilliant economic theorist and philosopher of knowledge, and Swedish politician—brought to...
This chapter addresses the unrelenting pessimism in Asian Drama about Indonesia’s development prospects. This pessimism was based on two key realities: the poor level of governance demonstrated by the Sukarno regime (partly a heritage of Dutch...
This paper aims to evaluate the impact of accessing agricultural extension on households’ agricultural profit. Results from pooled cross-sectional data show that each additional time of access is associated with a 15.5 per cent increase in...
The story of South Asia is a topsy-turvy one. Soon after independence from British rule, the region seemed to have a much better prospect than many other parts of the Third World; the prospects soon dimmed, however, as South Asia crawled while East...
Recently, quantitative methods have been increasingly used in ethnicity research, which traditionally has relied mainly on qualitative methods. However, quantitative studies on ethnicity in Indonesia are scarce, even though the country has more than...
View the latest ECUAMOD country report here. This report documents ECUAMOD, the SOUTHMOD micrososimulation model developed for Ecuador. This work was carried out by the ISER in collaboration with the Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales and UNU...
View the latest MOZMOD country report here. This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. This work was carried out by the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Mozambique in collaboration with the project partners in the...
View the latest TAZMOD country report here. This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania. This work was carried out by University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the project partners in the scope of the SOUTHMOD...
View the latest MicroZAMOD country report here. This report documents MicroZAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Zambia. This work was carried out by Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis & Research (ZIPAR) in collaboration with the project partners...
This paper investigates progress in reducing the high level of racial stratification of occupations after apartheid in South Africa. Empirical analysis, using census microdata and Labour Force Surveys, does not provide compelling evidence of...
A considerable body of research suggests that horizontal inequality between ethnic groups has major socioeconomic implications, in particular for peace and economic development. Much of this work focuses on horizontal inequality as an independent...
Implicit associations and biases are carried without awareness or conscious direction, yet there is reason to believe they may be influenced by social pressures. In this paper, I study social pressure as a motive to give, as well as giving itself...
How have economic development, employment, and labour markets in Asian countries interacted since the publication of Myrdal’s Asian Drama? Myrdal rejected, the western approach to and definition of employment and emphasized the role of ‘informal’...
We analyse the multidimensional wellbeing of children aged 0–17 in Mozambique and find that 46.3 per cent can be considered multidimensionally poor. A substantial divide exists between urban and rural areas and between northern and southern provinces...
This paper reviews the main methodological innovations in Asian Drama. It considers whether Myrdal’s perspectives have been adopted by development analysts, and where fresh thinking is needed, particularly in the light of changes occurring in the...
A considerable body of research suggests that horizontal inequality between ethnic groups has major socioeconomic implications, in particular for peace and economic development. Much of this work focuses on horizontal inequality as an independent...
This paper analyses policy options to promote local content in Uganda as it transitions into an oil-producing country. It contends that productive linkages between oil and gas exporters and domestic suppliers in a range of ‘connected’ goods and...
Using a comparative frame that draws on the variation of developmental trajectories in Asia from Northeast Asia to China to Southeast Asia and to India, this paper explores the changing role of the state in these countries and the contributions that...
In recent years, Mozambique has made international headlines for the significant hydrocarbon deposits found offshore. These have increased the country’s extractive resource endowments, in addition to its mining and onshore natural gas sector. It is...
The objective of this paper is to develop a Model that integrates the biologically determined human need for food energy and the economic activity (most) people Bust engage in to be able to eat. The optimal work effort and the optimal body size of...
Globally, the largest 0.001 per cent of firms earn roughly one-third of all corporate profits. Nonetheless, there is little understanding of how profit shifting differs across firm size. Using South African corporate tax returns from 2010–14, we...
A propitiously timed household survey carried out in Mozambique over the period 2008/2009 permits us to study the relationship between shifts in food prices and child nutrition status in a low income setting. We focus on weight-for-height and weight...
The Myanmar Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Survey 2017 shows that there is a need for comprehensive and immediate change in industrial, financial...
International Women’s Day on 8th March 2016 is a time to celebrate. It is also a time for reflection. We must constantly remind ourselves that while...
Sitting in the large conference room where we are being invited to ‘Think WIDER’ at the WIDER Development Conference this September. Surrounded by...
The effects of conditional cash transfers (CCTs) on poverty and well-being have been widely studied. However, there is limited knowledge on how a CCT should respond to the dynamics of poverty. How should program administrators treat beneficiaries...
A large part of Africa is chronically affected by a severe food crisis which threatens the food security of many of her inhabitants. A peculiarity of this continent is that food production is not only a source of food but also a source of incomes for...
Originally posted by Oxford Policy Management The extractives sector, and the way it works, continues to change rapidly and its importance to many...
We examine important changes in agriculture in Vietnam in the context of ongoing structural changes in the economy. We use a household-level panel dataset and a quantitative framework to document the extent and consequences of factor misallocation in...
This paper examines the relationship between poverty dynamics, causal pluralism, and mixed method research approaches. It reviews the nature and significance of the shift from the analysis of poverty status to poverty dynamics, discusses different...
We investigate within the context of Vietnam how circumstances at age 15 or 16 relate to completion of upper secondary education four years later. We exploit the longitudinal elements of the Vietnam Access to Resources Household Survey to identify...
The construction sector value added in Mozambique grew at an average annual rate of 12.8 per cent in 1993–2015. Investment in the basic infrastructure of health, education, and housing improved families’ and communities’ living conditions. Investment...
This paper traces the role of local content in Zambia’s mining sector in supporting industrialization and economic diversification. It assesses productive linkages and manufacturing competitiveness during import-substitution industrialization and...
The research explores the structure and performance of Ghana’s construction subsector, in light of the country’s 2007 oil discovery. Using primary and secondary data resources, we discuss how marginal costs and expenditure shocks may vary within the...
Industrial transformation of Asia arguably constitutes the most surprising and dramatic change in the global economy in the last fifty years. This paper provides an outline of some of the most important trends of this development and analyses...
This paper aims to depict the post-Second World War poverty and inequality trends in Asia, its sub-regions, and individual economies. Efforts are made to explain these trends and explore the interrelationship between growth, poverty, and inequality...
Labour-saving technology in the form of robotic systems, artificial intelligence, and advanced computer networks may cause a rapid decline in global...
13 September through 15 September 2018, UNU-WIDER hosted the Think development - Think WIDER conference in Helsinki, Finland. Over three days...
What do we talk about at a conference on development economics? Well, robots, rockets, and space, of course. 13 September through 15 September 2018...
During the past week, I participated in two international conferences. The first was the WIDER Development Conference in Helsinki: Think development -...
This paper provides the first direct systematic evidence of profit shifting through transfer mispricing in a developing country. Using South African transaction-level customs data, I directly test for transfer price deviations from arm’s-length...
This study takes as its starting point what Gunnar Myrdal had to say about Vietnam in the context of his seminal work, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, published in 1968. Myrdal pointed to the decisive nature of the Vietnamese...
This paper is a short history of the Indian economy since 1968. India today is a changed country from what it was half a century ago, when Myrdal published his Asian Drama. The stranglehold of low growth has been broken, its population below the...
Using instrumental variable method and Vietnam Access to Resources Household Surveys of 2008–16, I examine the effect of land fragmentation on child outcomes. The study shows that higher land fragmentation decreases child school dropout. Land...
This paper explores the impact of exposure to uninsured risks on the investment decisions of farmers. We distinguish between households’ perceived exposure to uninsured risk, measured as past exposure to deviations in average rainfall levels, and the...
International development organizations largely agree that illicit capital flight from developing countries is an obstacle for development. And...
This chapter explores one aspect of the relationship between the system of production and the macroeconomic structure, namely, the role of profitability in determining investment demand and the level of economic activity. Within the system of...
Four years ago, in 2014, Juan Villa spent three months at UNU-WIDER in our PhD Fellowship Programme. I spoke to him on a sunny September afternoon...
The Golden Age was the era of demand management. Originally with monetary, and then fiscal policy, the governments of the advanced capitalist economies attempted to enhance and guide the accumulation process. They allocated credit, manipulated...
Three changes in conditionality of loans are proposed in this study, in order to improve the relations between developing country borrowers and international lending agencies, and make the international cooperative effort at development and stability...
The impact of commercial farms on smallholders in developing countries remains highly controversial. This study draws on four periods of investments in commercial farming in Mozambique to frame an empirical analysis of their contemporary economic...
For years, the international development community has been considering poverty as a multidimensional phenomenon, which takes into account not only income or consumption of the poor, but also their access to basic needs (education, health, etc.) and...
This paper develops a new imputation methodology applied to missing incomes values in PNAD. PNAD is the main Brazilian household survey, but it has no imputation. The imputation process starts by fitting regression models applied to different income...
Education-related changes are often argued as the main reasons for changes in earnings distribution. However, omitted variable and measurement error biases possibly affect econometric estimates of these effects. Brazil experienced a sharp fall of...
The past 30 years have seen a consistent increase in agricultural commercialization in rural Vietnam, at the same time when rural residents have moved increasingly into non-agricultural activities. The contribution of the latter to welfare...
The construction sector is a key enabler for social and economic development worldwide. In Tanzania, the sector growth rate is well above the general economy and has maintained positive growth in response to the country’s investments in commercial...
The role of institutions in Asian development has been intensely contested since Myrdal’s Asian Drama, with later contributions from institutional economics and developmental state theory. Despite much progress, the dominant approaches do not agree...
Tanzania is rich with natural resources, which have significant potential to contribute to the country’s economic development. Several laws recently passed in Tanzania are dedicated to establishing linkages between foreign firms in natural resource...
The collection of articles in this symposium speaks to the issue of female autonomy and women's welfare within households, making use of rich data from a variety of developing countries including Brazil, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, India, Indonesia...
Part of Journal Special Issue Female Autonomy and Women’s Welfare
Part of Journal Special Issue Female Autonomy and Women’s Welfare
Part of Journal Special Issue Female Autonomy and Women’s Welfare
Part of Journal Special Issue Female Autonomy and Women’s Welfare
Part of Journal Special Issue Female Autonomy and Women’s Welfare
Part of Journal Special Issue Female Autonomy and Women’s Welfare
Part of Journal Special Issue Female Autonomy and Women’s Welfare
Ethnic inequality remains a persistent challenge for Vietnam. This paper aims at better understanding this ethnic gap through exploring the formation of risk sharing networks in rural areas. It first investigates the differences in risk sharing...
Inspired by Gunnar Myrdal’s core concepts discussed in his seminal work, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations, published in 1968, this paper analyses the opening-up experiences of three Asian countries (China, India, and Malaysia) by...
The current paper, first, finds that although the post-independence growth of African economies has fallen substantially below that of other regions, this comparative evidence is less than uniform across time and countries. Second, it uncovers total...
Public policy debates, about HIV and prevention policy, have tended to occupy one of two extreme positions derived from either rational choice and or structuralists theories. This paper argues that the concept of hope may offer a way through this...
The paucity of non-agricultural paid employment, and under utilization of female labour in Uganda, and other sub-Saharan African countries, is often seen to be the next major obstacle to further poverty reduction and development in the region...
This paper investigates the role of aid in mitigating the adverse effects of commodity export price shocks on growth in commodity-dependent countries. Using a large cross-country dataset, we find that negative shocks matter for short-term growth...
Improvements in productivity are necessary to effectively increase economic growth in the long term. The literature emphasizes a positive correlation between firm-level innovation and productivity gains. It is unsurprising, then, that policy makers...
North Korea's economic reform began in the mid-1980s. It was motivated by the increasing seriousness of the problems typical of centrally planned socialist economies.In general, the country's reforms have so far been limited both in scope and depth...
The Indian financial sector has undergone a significant structural transformation since the initiation of financial liberalization during 1990’s. It brought significant changes in the financial sector in general and banking in particular. While there...
This paper's goal is to increase the understanding of the inequality trends during the transitional period in China. From 1978 to 1995, China has been undergoing 18 years far-reaching economic system reform and opening to the outside world nationwide...
Much has been written on the determinants of technology adoption in agriculture, with issues such as input availability, knowledge and education, risk preferences, profitability, and credit constraints receiving much attention. This paper focuses on...
This paper applies recent developments in collective model estimation to elicit the allocation of resources in African families in South Africa. We use the 2010/11 South African Income and Expenditure Survey as it contains exclusive goods, i.e...
A book review Book review on 'Protection for exporters: power and discrimination in transatlantic trade relations, 1930-2010' by Andreas Duer Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010.
Traditional development models focus on the sector rather than location of growth. Advocates of agriculture-led strategies emphasise agriculture's strong growth linkages and potential to raise rural incomes. The new economic geography literature...
We provide a formal model of entrepreneurship in human development. The framework is provided by the capabilities approach (CA). Hence we extend not only the conceptualisation of entrepreneurship in development, but the reach of the CA into...
The pressure on an already stressed water situation in South Africa is predicted to increase significantly under climate change, plans for large industrial expansion, ongoing rapid urbanization, and government programs to provide access to water to...
Studies of land property rights usually focus on tenure security and transfer rights. Rights to determine how to use the land are regularly ignored. However, user rights are often limited. Relying on a unique Vietnamese panel data set at both...
The urbanization process is frequently shaped by prevailing constructions of gender. The recognition of this phenomenon is vital both in diagnosis and policy terms. This paper aims at illustrating the importance of gender in three major related...
Many economists claim that entrepreneurship is an important determinant of economic growth and development. In the sub-discipline of development economics however, entrepreneurship is largely absent from explanations of growth and development. This...
Extreme weather events such as droughts and floods have potentially damaging implications for developing countries. Previous studies have estimated economic losses during hypothetical or single historical events, and have relied on historical...
In analyzing Viet Nam's recent economic adjustments, this paper attempts to distinguish events and policies that are properly assigned to the transition effort (defined as the process of increasing the market determination of economic outcomes) and...
The article models economic growth determinants in the Dominican Republic. The exercise considers a panel of 25 candidate explanatory variables observed during the last three decades of the twentieth century. The time series are selected on the basis...
This contribution studies the provision of fringe benefits using a unique survey of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam. Analysis of the survey reveals that women who own SMEs are more likely than men who own similar firms to provide...
This article argues for a more systemic engagement with Latin American cities, contending that it is necessary to reconsider their unity in order to nuance the ‘fractured cities’ perspective that has widely come to epitomize the contemporary urban...
This chapter is part of a book titled Hidden Hunger: Strategies to Improve Nutrition Quality Hidden hunger has long been an overlooked problem. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies have to be remedied and the availability of calories needs to be...
Sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest urbanising region of the world. This demographic transformation has occurred in concert with two other trends in the region, nascent democratisation and stalled decentralisation. Using the case of Lusaka, Zambia...
Uzbekistan is typically seen as one of the slowest reformers among the countries in transition from central planning to a market-oriented economy. This paper evaluates the welfare impact of gradual transition in Uzbekistan, asking whether it has...
How poor countries can ignite economic growth without waiting for global action or the creation of ideal local conditions. Contrary to conventional wisdom, countries that ignite a process of rapid economic growth almost always do so while lacking...
Part of Book Beating the Odds
The analysis of the optimal funding of education is complicated by the numerous and serious market failures which are likely to characterize a free market for education. Prominent amongst these are the likely external benefits of education, stressed...
The abundance of private capital flows confronts many emerging-market authorities with a transfer problem. They must decide whether to accept or resist the net capital inflow, or how much to accept and how much to resist. This paper aims at assisting...
This paper analyses in depth the causes of the Mexican peso crisis, so as to learn relevant lessons for similar crisis occurring in other developing or transitional economies. The study follows a relatively chronological order, examining first the...
This paper investigates the economic consequences of a scenario in which the European Union (EU) imposes economic sanctions on Sudan. The idea of the paper is motivated by the deteriorating relations between Sudan and the EU arising from the...
Like many African countries, Kenya is vulnerable to avian flu given its position along migratory bird routes and proximity to other high risk countries. This raises concern about the effect of an outbreak on rural livelihoods. We use a dynamic...
This paper develops and tests five hypotheses regarding the economic causes of complex humanitarian emergencies (CHEs). We argue that: (1) such emergencies, involving large-scale deaths and population displacements, are most likely to occur when...
Rapid economic growth does not appear to have significantly improved poverty and nutrition outcomes in Tanzania. We link recent production trends to household incomes using a regionalized, recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium and...
This paper investigates whether a Taylor rule accurately describes the South African Reserve Bank’s reaction function in setting interest rates using quarterly data, covering the period since inflation targeting was formally adopted in 2000. The...
As research on the empirical link between aid and growth continues to grow, it is time to revisit the accumulated evidence on aid effectiveness. This paper does this by building on the meta-analysis in our previous work. The availability of more data...
Single-party political systems exist in a number of countries, such as China and Vietnam. In these countries, party membership is potentially an important source of economic and social status. This paper investigates these effects and the mechanisms...
Understanding how internal labour migration affects the agricultural sector is important for all developing countries whose markets do not work well or are non-existent. In fact, even if the movement out of the agricultural sector can be viewed as a...
This paper investigates the importance of transport costs in new venture internationalisation, i.e. of firms that start exporting before they are 3 years of age. It does so by merging two large international datasets, on the firm level (covering 49...
This paper is the fruit of an attempt to distinguish the elements, present in a fiscal decentralization process, that are likely to contribute to efficiency enhancement in the provision of social services in developing countries. From the...
We take school admission mechanisms to the lab to test whether the widely-used manipulable Immediate Acceptance mechanism disadvantages students of lower cognitive ability and whether this leads to ability segregation across schools. Results show...
All centrally planned economies suffered from over-investment. Due to low capital productivity, reasonable growth rates in output could be maintained only with high investment/GDP ratios. Nevertheless, the sharp reduction in investment during...
This paper describes the scale and nature of development assistance to projects that sought to improve housing and living conditions for low income groups, including housing-related infrastructure and services such as water supply, sanitation and...
A good deal is known about what makes for successful economic development, but very little is known about how to get there - that entails an understanding of the process of economic change. The paper first examines the sources of successful growth...
The paper reviews the theoretical basis for the application of user fees in the public health sector in low-income countries with particular reference to the special characteristics of medical care as a commodity. The general equilibrium efficiency...
The paper discusses some of the social and historical factors behind the evolution of contemporary women's organizations in Algeria. The paper states that the women question was never a priority. Yet, since the late 1980s, women became advocates of...
There has been a phenomenal global increase in the proportion of women in politics in the last 20 years. While there is evidence that raising the share of women politicians has substantive impacts on the composition of government spending, there is...
Public debate on the temporary employment services, or labour broker, sector in South Africa has focused on temporary workers’ wages and benefits. Empirical research is limited: temporary employment services cannot be accurately identified in recent...
Using 1990 5% Census and American Community Survey data, we examine the economic integration of Afghan refugees to the US, focusing on employment rates and income levels. First-wave Afghan refugees (those arriving 1980–90) have made significant...
A well functioning system of public service delivery requires the definition and measurement of eligibility for services to be determined in a transparent and non-discretionary manner. This paper uses the case of the Productive Social Safety Net in...
In examining the welfare situation, this paper explores the relationship between economic changes and social development in Asian transition economies. Under the central planning system, achievements in human development in these countries were...
According to information issued at the World Food Summit held in Rome in 1996, about one fifth of the world's population is now living under the poverty line, and this number is increase by 25 million people in developing countries every year. For...
After the devastating famine of 1974, Bangladesh has successfully avoided any further disaster of its kind, surviving two close calls in 1979 and 1984 and a succession of floods in the recent years. Welcome as it, this success raises for the analyst...
The youth have long represented an important constituency for electoral mobilization in Africa. Yet, despite their numerical importance and the historical relevance of generational identities within the region, very little is really known about the...
This paper is part of a larger UNUIWIDER research project which examines the problems of the provision of basic social goods, such as health care, education, maternal care and safe water, in the developing countries. These services have...
This report documents the principal findings of the 2017 Survey of Mozambican Manufacturing Firms (IIM 2017). The survey was planned and implemented by researchers from the Development Economics Research Group (DERG) at the University of Copenhagen...
Este relatório documenta as principais conclusões do Inquérito às Indústrias Manufactureiras Moçambicanas em 2017 (IIM 2017). A pesquisa foi planificada e implementada por pesquisadores do Grupo de Pesquisa em Economia do Desenvolvimento (DERG) da...
The first part of the paper describes steps which Tanzania took in order to provide key social services to her people. Tanzania made great efforts within the ujamaa socialist system to provide free social services for rural as well as urban people...
In 2008, the Government of Zambia reformed its mining tax regime for large-scale copper mines through a unilateral legislative change. The country went from having one of the lowest average effective tax rates and government take to be above the...
This study aims at providing causal evidence for tax-motivated profit-shifting out of developing countries, which, while often claimed to be the most affected, have been largely neglected in the literature. It uses global firm-level panel data from...
In this paper, I show that occupations in South Africa are segregated and stratified not only by race, but also by gender. While some women (mostly black and Coloured) overwhelmingly fill low-paying jobs, others (mostly white and Indian/Asian but...
This paper introduces the origins and scope of humanitarian economics, a vibrant field of study and practice that deals with the economics and political economy of war, disaster, and humanitarian action. To illustrate the field’s scientific and...
Inequality and social exclusion receive considerable contemporary policy attention. In the field of international development, inequality—both vertical (between individuals and households) and horizontal (between groups)—is a core concern in the 2030...
This paper presents a brief history of social services provision in Nigeria with special reference to education. It argues that the problems of implementation of social policies are due to state monopolies; the negative effects of structural...
Myanmar’s transition to a market-based economy is accompanied by rapid development of the private manufacturing sector, which has large potential for improving economic growth. The overall success of the sector, however, should not be taken for...
Over the past two decades, there has been unprecedented attention to the promotion of human development via government spending in the social sectors as a conditio sine qua non for economic growth and improved aggregate welfare. Yet the existing...
Most developing countries are increasingly depending on freshwater based aquaculture to supplement the declining catch from capture fisheries. Yet the competition between capture fisheries and cage culture for space, pollution generated by cage...
The rights-based approach to development targets progress towards the realization of 30 articles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In current practice, progress is frequently measured using the multidimensional poverty index...
In common with several other low-income African economies, in recent years Mozambique has seen a significant expansion of interest and investment in its long-established extractives industries. Huge new gas finds in particular have led to...
Unprecedented numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have arrived in Europe over the last decade, and young Afghans account for the highest proportion of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children across the UK. Despite research exploring the...
Raising women’s political participation leads to faster maternal mortality decline. We estimate that the introduction of quotas for women in parliament results in a 9–12 per cent decline in maternal mortality. In terms of mechanisms, it also leads to...
Interventions in remote, rural settings face high transaction costs. We develop a model of household decision-making to evaluate how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) address these implementation-related challenges and influence intervention...
In this paper, I quantify the contribution of a subpopulation to inequality. This is defined as the sum of the contributions of its members, with these contributions computed as the impact on inequality of a small increase in the population mass at...
Poverty declined substantially in Mozambique between 1996/97 and 2014/15. However, the recent economic crisis, characterized by a significant increase in domestic prices, may have dragged several households into poverty. Using consumer price index...
This Research in Progress report is divided into two parts. Part I studies the operationalization and indicators of the different elements of complex humanitarian emergencies. It includes discussions of what to try to measure when looking into the...
Policy makers should see integration and upward mobility, and not simply placement and survival, as goals of resettlement of refugees. Our research on...
Many Soviet state enterprises are changing their legal form. Permissive but imprecise legislation, policy paralysis at all levels of government, the breakdown of the state supply system, and continued excess demand, have allowed managers of state...
The aim of this study is to identify needs for recovery from people’s perspectives under a localized context following the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. A qualitative approach was applied to collecting and processing data which consist of 114 semi...
Mozambique has been facing macroeconomic difficulties since 2015. This has amplified the obstacles for micro, small and medium-sized manufacturing...
The proposition that inflation expectations can be extracted as inflation predictions from the government bond yield curve has been tested, with partially positive results, using data from the United States and European countries. Despite the...
Education is my freedom ... if I have my education, everything is still possible for me in the future. Mohammed grinned, and looked down at his newly...
Using unbalanced panel data from the small and medium enterprise surveys in Vietnam in 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015, this paper investigates factors associated with informality in Vietnam. We assume that household businesses, especially the...
This paper examines the nature of the unorthodox ownership and governance structures that are emerging among firms and the way these structures are supporting the remarkable economic growth in the transition economies of East Asia, as represented in...
In recent years churches, NGOs and community associations, commonly referred to as civic organizations, have been playing an increasing role in the provision of social services in response to fiscal stress, state inefficiency and an ideological...
This diagnostic study explores the political conditions that are associated with humanitarian emergencies. It employs a risk rather than cause-effect methodology. Humanitarian emergencies are not random events. They occur most frequently in states...
This special issue of the Journal of International Development comprises a set of papers on the theme of aid and gender equality. While the topic of aid effectiveness has been examined in this journal and elsewhere, the focus on how well development...
This paper analyses the rationale of interventions in foreign exchange markets in Sub- Saharan Africa and reviews exchange rate theory and balance of payments management and its application to African countries. It analyses the liberalization of...
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid for Gender Equality and Development
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid for Gender Equality and Development
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid for Gender Equality and Development
The liberalization of food marketing has been implemented as part of structural adjustment programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa. In this study we assess i) the aims of reform policy, ii) the implementation of specific reform measures, iii) the politics...
The paper analyses the small- and medium-sized enterprise sector in Poland, seeking to answer the question of whether SME development along current lines is sufficient to assure the sustainable development of the Polish economy. Of the many aspects...
As seen from the year 2001, economic policy in developing and post-socialist economies during the preceding 10-15 years had one dominating theme - external 'liberalization' or the drastic lowering or removal of long-standing barriers to almost all...
This paper reviews income distribution in developing (and transition) countries in recent decades. On average, before-tax income distribution is less unequal in developing countries than it is in industrial countries. However, unlike industrial...
This Working Paper discusses mixed systems in which SMEs functioned successfully in the presence of extensive state ownership of large enterprises and even classical central planning. Past and present examples are considered in which a small...
This paper investigates the impact labour regulation, as defined by labour standards, have on the international trade regime. After providing a description of the debate's landscape, the paper focuses on the questions: Could the adoption of a...
The sculpture below in Mexico City is called ‘El Ángel de la Securidad Social’ (The Angel of Social Security) and was created by Jorge Marín in 2013...
This paper defines a role for human rights and human rights workers in the discussion of humanitarian emergencies. The approach is to look at how human rights law, monitoring, and information can be useful in two ways: (1) to warn of an impending...
Much of the vast literature on changes in income distribution in advanced countries during the last two decades attributes these either to globalization (specifically in the form of trade liberalization with low-wage developing countries), or to...
The economic reform policies in the 1980s and the 1990s under the so-called Washington Consensus have recently led to growing concern for inequality. This paper looks at some of the labour market outcomes of the economic reform policies in terms of...
In this paper we propose to measure the inequality of educational achievements by constructing a Gini index on educational attainments. We then use the proposed measure to analyse the relationship between inequality in incomes and educational...
The impressive economic growth record of Thailand before 1997 was dominated by the increasing importance of modem industrialization, as well as the expansion of other sectors. This occurred at the expense of agriculture, which accounts for the...
This study attempts to investigate and assess the impact of financial liberalization and the ongoing rise of financial rents on income distribution in the post-1980 Turkish economy. Our quantitative investigation of the dynamics of macroeconomic...
This paper studies the evolution of Venezuelan inequality since 1970. It finds a striking increase in Venezuelan inequality that has been due mainly to the rise in capital's share of GDP. It shows that the increase can be traced back to the coupling...
This study examines the empirical relationship among inequality, poverty and economic growth in India. Using data on consumption from the 13th to the 53rd Rounds of the National Sample Survey, the author computes, for both rural and urban sectors...
The dispersion of racial incomes in South Africa has been declining since the mid 1970s. This has been accompanied by rising within-group inequality, especially amongst blacks, driven by growing unemployment. Consequently, there has been little...
The recent rise in inequality in the distribution of disposable income in many, although not all, countries has led to a search for explanations, particularly since for much of the postwar period falling inequality has been the norm. In OECD...
While unequal land ownership has a role to play in explaining historically high levels of income inequality, this paper asks what role agrarian structure plays in explaining contemporary trends of increasing income inequality. Using a Gini...
For developing and transitional countries we explore trends in rural-urban, intrarural and intraurban inequality of income, poverty risk, health and education. In particular, we ask whether behind generally rising inequality post-1980 lie offsetting...
Beginning with an empirical analysis of banking crises using a logit econometric model covering a sample of developed and developing countries between 1980-97, the paper suggests that crises are more likely in years of low growth and high real...
The most often used form of contingent protection is the anti-dumping (AD) mechanism. In 1999 the number of AD cases initiated accounted for 86.32 per cent of the total of three main types of contingent protection measures used; countervailing duty...
In this paper we identify some of the drivers of changes in the distribution of earnings and earnings inequality in the South African labour market between 2000 and 2014. Although the overall level of earnings inequality between 2000 and 2011 was...
Through the use of administrative tax data, this study attempts to identify the characteristics of firms that employ relatively large numbers of young people. The policy objective of this exercise is to use these insights to inform policy and...
This paper estimates a private school learning premium in Tanzania by implementing a flexible value-added model with unique administrative data on exam scores. The dataset covers 635,000 secondary school students with information on both their...
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the scope for international private standards to play a role in reducing business risk. Business risk is measured as variability in revenue, customer base, informal payments, and temporary firm closure. The...
This paper reviews main S&D provisions for developing countries under the GATT-WTO trading system and discusses issues relating to the future of S&D treatment from the perspective of the least-developed countries (LDCs). It argues that negotiations...
This paper uses a recent household survey and the CEQ framework to revisit and extend previous research on the impact of fiscal policy on income redistribution, and poverty in South Africa. We find, in accordance with previous research, that direct...
Slack resources are usually identified as an endogenous motivation for firms’ innovation. Still, it is crucial to assess the importance of slack in supporting innovation, especially in different institutional contexts. Therefore, the paper...
We use a recent first-hand linked employer-employee survey covering the formal sector of Bangladesh to explain gender wage gaps by the inclusion of measures of cognitive attainment and personality traits. Our results show that cognitive skills have...
This paper examines whether protectionist tendencies, in terms of both policy preferences and policy actions, in 'Northern' countries-looking in particular at the United States - seem to be an obstacle to the integration into the world economy of...
The object of this paper is to analyse the evolution of the international trading system from its inception as GATT in 1947 to its latest incarnation as WTO, comprising the complex array of agreements forming its substance and mandate. The study...
This paper sketches a profile of international labour migration over the past fifty years and draws a distinction between different categories of labour flows in the contemporary world economy. It examines the underlying factors with an emphasis on...
In this paper, the role of small and medium size enterprises in the economic transformation of the countries of Central Europe is assessed. It argues that although these fulfil an important role, they are less significant as agents of macroeconomic...
This paper establishes a theoretical framework for the ongoing research project of UNU/WIDBR on Property Rights Regimes, Microeconomic Incentives and Development. It identifies the major research interests, questions, and focuses. The theoretical...
Recent financial crises, whose effects have been particularly severe in developing countries, have led to a wide-ranging debate on international financial reform. This debate has had to confront the implications of the huge growth of international...
This study evaluates the technical efficiency and productivity of a sample of public sector hospitals in three provinces of South Africa using the non- parametric techniques of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and DEA-based Malmquist productivity...
This paper re-examines the current debate on price scissors based on an extended framework, in which the production and trade of industrial consumer goods within the rural sector is incorporated. It confirms that in the economy considered by...
This paper explores the nature of collective action and group behaviour through a case study of a highly successful political organization of poorer sex workers in Calcutta. The paper asks: What stimulated the participation of sex workers in their...
The paper deals with evaluating the adequacy of the assumption that in economic transactions people are self-interested insofar as they are motivated solely by the concern of maximizing their own utility, and in particular with assessing how this...
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid for Gender Equality and Development
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid for Gender Equality and Development
This paper considers the role and modus operandi of the National Coffee Federation of Colombia. Much respected and much criticized over time, today its role is being challenged as inappropriate to the new commitment to a free market economy. The...
This paper focuses on the networks of business-related contacts that are built and maintained by manufacturing entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa. It describes the various functions that such networks perform, explaining why each function is...
The management of international reserves remains one of the understudied aspects of the international monetary system. There are now a number of reasons why this should change. On the supply side of the market there is the advent of the euro...
The partial effect of nominal exchange rate volatility on exports from each EMU member to the rest of the EMU is estimated on annual data for 1967-97, using modern time-series methods. The long-run relations between exchange rate volatility and...
An interesting theory of transition must give a convincing account of structural adjustment and supply side improvement. In this paper, I discuss the incentives for government to undertake costly supply side improvement and how these relate to...
The emergence of the euro as a key currency, perhaps eventually rivalling the US dollar in importance, may have important macroeconomic implications for industrial as well as developing economies in the years ahead. This paper focuses on two related...
The purpose of this paper is to explore economic and political implications of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) for developing countries. In strictly economic terms, influences will be communicated through both trade and financial channels...
We analyse the prospects for greater monetary integration in Africa, in the wake of EMU. We argue that the structural characteristics of African economies are quite different to the EMU members but that much can be gained from monetary cooperation...
The extractives industries must adjust their operations to shifting patterns of demand for oil, natural gas, and coal together with metals and minerals – as policies and new technologies encourage progress along low-carbon pathways in energy...
This paper studies the political and economic evolution of trade and international relations of the nations and regions of Asia between themselves and the rest of the world over the past millennium, paying particular attention to: the Pax Mongolica...
This paper surveys issues related to globalization, and the obstacles to the successful integration of vulnerable economies. For many developing countries, the positive benefits of the increased globalization that has been taking place since around...
This paper analyses the relationship between climate and migration in rural households in Vietnam. We propose an instrumental variable approach that controls for the potential endogeneity between crop production and migration using monthly minimum...
Over the past sixty years, most Asian countries have undergone relatively rapid agricultural transformations that helped jumpstart broader economic development. However, the changes have differed markedly in nature and speed across countries of the...
This paper studies the relationship between land tenure for smallholder agriculture and deforestation in Vietnam. We combine high resolution satellite data on deforestation with rich household and commune-level, biannual panel data. We study two...
Oil resources are neither a curse nor a blessing. The sound management of these resources can make them beneficial or otherwise. In order to translate Ghana’s oil resources into inclusive development amid high expectations, several laws and...
This paper explores the impacts of information technology investment on economic growth in a cross-section of 39 countries in the period 1980-95 by applying an explicit model of economic growth, the augmented version of the neoclassical (Solow)...
This paper examines group functioning in the management of common pool resources, such as forests. In recent years community forestry groups have mushroomed in South Asia. But how participative, equitable and efficient are they? Many have done well...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2. Marriage is the single most important contractual arrangement youth in North Africa undertake as they navigate their transition to adulthood. Despite its importance in shaping subsequent...
Statistical and sociological evidence is gathered to display changes in social structure of the Czech society before and after 1989, with a special focus on economic inequalities. In the first part, frozen landscape of the communist regime is...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.Africa has achieved a much-improved agricultural and economic growth performance over the last 15 years. During 2003-2010 the agricultural sector grew at an annual average rate of almost...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.As an upper middle-income country within Africa, South Africa often attracts specific interest in terms of its economic growth and development dynamics. Often under-appreciated, is the...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
Part of Journal Special Issue Sustainability of External Development Finance
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
We analyse policymakers’ incentives to fight corruption under different institutional qualities. We find that ‘public officials’, even when non-corrupt, significantly distort anti-corruption institutions by choosing a lower detection probability when...
Despite the fast catching up in the diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICT) experienced by most EU countries in the last few years, information technologies have so far delivered few productivity gains in Europe. In the second...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
South Africa exhibits extreme levels of income inequality and is ranked as one of the most unequal countries in the world. In order to measure these severe levels of inequality, it matters how we account for the different parts of the income...