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The Polarized post-2015 Development Puzzle: The Poorest still Fall Behind23 April 2013 Marikki Stocchetti 2015 will mark a moment of truth for the international community as the era of the Millennium Development agenda...
23 April 2013 Marikki Stocchetti 2015 will mark a moment of truth for the international community as the era of the Millennium Development agenda...
24 June 2013 Aziz Karimov By the end of 2015, we will see a new global development agenda which will substitute the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs...
9 December 2013 S. Subramanian 1 Introduction It appears that the World Bank is planning to maintain and disseminate systematic information on a...
29 March 2014 Quite a few prominent Finnish economists have been collaborating with UNU-WIDER throughout the years. One of them is Jukka Pirttilä, who...
Finn Tarp The current global development agenda is centred on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), established at the turn of the Millennium. They...
21 March 2013 In foreign aid, results are the buzz word of the day; evaluation, monitoring, and quality control are the means of demonstrating to...
9 May 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén The world is a complex place where risk and uncertainty are an everyday challenge. Decision makers at all levels say...
24 September 2013 Roger Williamson Another big weekend for UNU-WIDER. The stage was well set on Thursday 19 September for a consideration of...
15 January 2013Martin Rama from The World bank discusses the process behind the World Development Report 2013 on jobs, which he directed.He emphasises...
Part of Book The New Regionalism and the Future of Security and Development
We consider the interplay of climate change impacts, global mitigation policies, and the interests of developing countries to 2050. Focusing on Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, we employ a structural approach to biophysical and economic modeling that...
17 October 2013 James Foster describes the importance of moving beyond income poverty as a way of assessing 'who is poor?' and 'how poor?'...
24 June 2013 Minister Gunilla Carlson Like every political agenda, the post-2015 agenda must be firmly based in a reality check. The current...
Economist Imed Drine recently left UNU-WIDER and headed with his family for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to take up a new position as a senior economist with...
Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva [1] The concept of social class and specifically middle class, has been widely discussed in sociology and other social...
Danielle Resnick and Regina Birner In recent years, there has been renewed emphasis on promoting agricultural production and food security in sub...
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. This book examines the links...
M.G. Quibria In the wake of the worst famine of Bangladesh of the post-World War era Professor Muhammad Yunus launched a microcredit experiment in...
Part of Book Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Part of Book Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Part of Book Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Part of Book Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Part of Book Growth, Employment, and Poverty in Latin America
Rolph van der Hoeven and Peter van Bergeijk One of the most important trends that emerged since the launch of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)...
Tony Addison and Miguel Niño-Zarazúa China and India are making immense strides in development. Growth in both countries has been impressive. But...
Tony Addison and Miguel Niño-Zarazúa China and India are making immense strides in development. Growth in both countries has been impressive. But...
Duncan Green Updating a book on contemporary events can be unnerving. In the intervening years, events and new thinking combine to expose the...
24 January 2014 In this interview Armando Barrientos and Ed Amann give an introduction to their research project at the Brooks World Poverty Institute...
Carl-Gustav Lindén Bangladesh has made some remarkable strides in development and poverty reduction since independence, despite generally weak...
Carl-Gustav Lindén The research project ReCom-Research and Communication on foreign aid, which is co-ordinated by UNU-WIDER with funding from the...
Malokele Nanivazo Sexual violence crime (SV) in wartime is not a new phenomenon. Mass rapes have occurred in armed conflicts in Rwanda, Kosovo...
29 November 2012 Carl-Gustav Lindén In November 2012 UNU-WIDER had the pleasure of hosting a public event with Dr Kaushik Basu, the newly appointed...
Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen The Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary, was the venue for the launch on 16 June 2012 of the just...
Tony Addison Today, there is much frustration with the financial sector. Society’s precious savings are not being put to the best of uses—investing...
Luc Christiaensen and Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen If a person suddenly becomes poor, for example, due to an unexpected death or illness in the family...
16 December 2014 John Page On 20 November 2014 the United Nations celebrated the 25th Africa Industrialization Day. But perhaps ‘celebrate’ is not...
With COP21 currently taking place in Paris, the thoughts of UNU-WIDER Research Fellow Channing Arndt on the past and future of the climate change...
Using survey data from rural Vietnam, this paper documents a statistically significant, positive effect of self-employment in farming on subjective well-being. Wage workers are less happy than farmers across a range of different types of wage jobs...
23 April 2014 Justin Yifu Lin and Yan Wang At the onset of its miraculous rise in 1979, China had been trapped in poverty for centuries and was poorer...
In this paper we assess the IMF approach to economic reform in developing countries. The impact of IMF program participation on economic growth has been evaluated empirically in a cross-country literature, with little evidence of IMF programs having...
Poverty reduction has become the central goal of development policies over the last decade but there is a growing realization that the poorest people rarely benefit from poverty reduction programmes. Microfinance programmes can help poor people...
30 October 2012 At the recent UNU-WIDER research conference on development and climate change, the communications team took the opportunity to ask...
Policy coherence implies that donors in pursuing domestic policy objectives should avoid adversely affecting the development prospects of poor countries. To achieve policy coherence donors and multilateral institutions need to ensure security and...
The debate on industrial policy (IP) has been characterized by a number of contractions over the concept of industrial policy, its merits, contents and application. The purpose of this exploratory paper is to review the debate on IP. Outlining the...
Gérard Roland The above titled book, published by Palgrave Macmillan 2012, brings together contributions from a conference that took place in Helsinki...
Flera länder i Latin- och Sydamerika har under det senaste decenniet infört sociala trygghetssystem för att minska den utbredda fattigdomen. Miguel NiñoZarazúa går här igenom bakgrunden till dessa reformer och vilka effekter de har fått. Fokus ligger...
This paper explores the effect of land titling on agricultural productivity in Vietnam and the productivity effects of single versus joint titling for husband and wife. Using a plot-fixed-effects approach our results show that obtaining a land title...
Drawing data from the India Human Development Survey 2011 and the year of the first election with reserved seats for women pradhans, I estimate the effect of the Panchayati Raj institutions on age and autonomy over marriage. Results indicate that...
This paper adds to the recent literature on firm-level corruption by relying on rich data including detailed information on the purpose and amounts of bribe payments among Vietnamese micro, small, and medium firms. Using industry-location averages to...
Qualitative case studies suggest that the outcomes of tax treaty negotiations are determined by power politics and negotiating capability. In contrast, quantitative studies have tended to depart from a model that implies absolute gains, full...
This paper outlines how sustainable development in resource-rich countries requires an ‘all of government’ approach as well as multi-stakeholder dialogue and partnerships between government, companies, and civil society organizations. Effective...
Economic development in low income settings is often associated with an expansion of higher-value agricultural activities. Since these activities often bring new risks, an understanding of cropland decisions and how these interact with shocks is...
This paper identifies eight political economy factors that influenced governments’ policy choices during the most recent global food price crisis. To explain the variety of responses and the policy failures, a framework is proposed that locates...
The recent publication of the 3rd edition of ICMM’s The Role of Mining in National Economies (hereafter RoMiNE3) provides us with the welcome biennial...
My previous blog, which you can read here, commented on the manner in which mining companies had been able to respond to the recent decline in metals...
The regional development policy in Brazil materializes mainly in the regional development funds for the north-east (FNE), the north (FNO), and the centre-west (FCO), in which more than EUR36 billion was invested between 2004 and 2010. This paper...
Imed Drine Many observers see youth unemployment as the major reason behind the recent popular uprisings in a number of Arab countries. Increasing...
Africa has come a long way since the economic turmoil of the 1980s, the decade of ‘structural adjustment’. Growth has been strong, yet poverty remains high. Underlying the shortage of good livelihoods and high social inequality is the lack of...
Alisa DiCaprio The global arms trade is a lucrative business. In 2010, total arms transfers were estimated at US$40 billion. Despite the global...
David L. Richards Over the past decades, the terms ‘human rights’ and ‘human development’ have been characterized as being: complementary to one...
Danielle Resnick During the last month, three democracies in Africa witnessed incumbent presidents exit office in very different ways. The most...
Tony Addison, Tseday Mekasha, Milla Nyyssölä, Lucy Scott, Finn Tarp, Tuuli Ylinen To meet development objectives, aid recipients and their donor...
The presence of European colonial powers in Africa has left a long-lasting legacy that has severely impacted their development trajectories. But what are the lingering effects of colonization on economic performance, in particular with regard to...
The appalling massacres in France have highjacked the media (and to some extent political) attention away from the climate diplomacy of CoP21 and onto...
In the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, debt crises have plagued low-, middle-, and high-income countries at various times. Indebted countries have generally addressed balance of payments crises either by (a) obtaining International...
The recent food price crisis and the responses of the policy makers in developing countries provide an unprecedented opportunity to analyse the policy processes in these countries. Policy responses differed depending on the nature and magnitude of...
Michael Keen, Deputy Director of the IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s WIDER Development Conference on...
Carl-Gustav Lindén One important part of ReCom–Research and Communication on Foreign Aid is the sharing of results. October saw the largest effort so...
The United Nations sustainable development goal (SDG) 3 seeks “to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all and at all ages”. To build healthcare systems that were able to progress towards the millennium development goals, many countries...
Improved household accessibility to credit is a significant determinant of intra-household allocation of labor resources with important implications for productivity, income, and poverty status. However, credit accessibility could also have wider...
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
21 September 2012 The intricate dynamic between foreign aid to Africa, democratic transitions and consolidation is the topic of a series of research...
GUESTAngle John Langmore and Perrin Wilkins When delivering the eighth WIDER Annual Lecture on rethinking growth strategies in 2004 Dani Rodrik...
Danielle Resnick and James Thurlow The concept of ‘green growth’ is one which has understandable political currency, highlighted by its prominence in...
Tony Addison Finland traditionally celebrates the start of summer on 1st May (the ‘Vappu’ holiday), and UNU-WIDER currently basks in warm sunshine. At...
Tony Addison UNU-WIDER is having a very active and successful autumn. Our climate change and development policy conference at the end of September...
9 May 2013 Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen and Roger Williamson Pathways to Industrialization in the Twenty-First Century, (edited by Adam Szirmai, Wim...
Tony Addison Mid-September finds UNU-WIDER very busy preparing for our big conference on climate change and development policy that takes place later...
24 September 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén At the recent UNU-WIDER conference here in Helsinki on inclusive growth in Africa, the quality of national...
Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a...
Tony Addison I started writing this ‘From the Editor’s Desk’ in Accra, to the sound of an African drum band, preparing for a ceremony to mark the...
Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
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...
Tony Addison January saw the snow arrive in Helsinki. As I look out across the harbour, the scene is one of various shades of white and grey. The...
Tony Addison It’s now February, and Helsinki remains deep in snow. We had an extended blizzard last weekend, with temperatures hovering around minus...
Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Tony Addison This year has rushed by at speed. For UNU-WIDER it’s been a year of big successes. We will have published some 110 working papers by the...
By now you have probably seen the exciting revamp of our website. These changes are not cosmetic. They represent a fundamental rebuilding of our web...
Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Tony Addison With this issue, Angle returns refreshed from its Nordic summer break. The sun continues to shine on the Baltic, although it is getting...
Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Tony Addison With our temperatures now well above zero, we head for the official end of the Finnish winter on 1st May (the ‘Vappu’ holiday). As...
Part of Book Entrepreneurship and Economic Development
Malokele Nanivazo and Lucy Scott The first gender equality workshop under UNU-WIDER’S ReCom—Research and Communication in Foreign Aid project was held...
This is the second of a two-part article presenting key discussion points from the UNU-WIDER gender equality workshop held 12-13 July 2012, in...
James Thurlow UNU-WIDER recently hosted an international conference on ‘Climate Change and Development Policy’. We were motivated by the apparent...
Yongfu Huang The climate change crisis and development needs of the world's poor require us to acknowledge the necessity and urgency for both...
Andrés Solimano Chile underwent a free market revolution initiated by the Pinochet regime in the 1970s and 1980s. A very similar model, with some...
Lucy Scott and Annett Victorero The ReCom—Research and Communication on Foreign Aid programme held its first results meeting on the topic of ‘Aid...
Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in London was the setting on 19 June 2012 for the launch of the...
Jyrki Ali-Yrkkö, Petri Rouvinen, Timo Seppälä, Pekka Ylä-Anttila Available statistics biases the true picture of the current stage of globalization...
Tony Addison The present currency turmoil is both a product and a cause of profound changes now underway in the global economy. Part 1 of this two...
Tony Addison The present currency turmoil is both a symptom and a cause of profound changes now underway in the global economy. In part 1 of this two...
Tony Addison A visit to Buenos Aires in September provided a good vantage point to look at the euro zone’s deepening crisis. Angle readers will recall...
Alyssa McCluskey, Channing Arndt, and Innocent Matshe In April-May of this year, the AERC and UNU-WIDER offered an online course on climate change...
Milla Nyyssölä Behavioural economics, an approach combining the insights of psychology and economics, is coming to the fore in development economics...
Tony Addison With six months remaining till the end of 2011, it’s time to take a peek into the near future. What can we expect? John Kenneth Galbraith...
Annett Victorero Latin America has for a long time been synonymous with high inequality, economic instability and authoritarian politics. However...
India’s policy responses to the food price crisis were strong. Exports of basic staples were banned. Domestic support prices of wheat and rice were raised substantially. The urea price increases in global markets were absorbed through enhanced...
Lucy Scott Bangladesh has made some remarkable strides in development and poverty reduction since independence. Yet the country is in many ways a...
Channing Arndt, Andres Garcia, Finn Tarp, and James Thurlow Economic growth typically reduces poverty, but global averages conceal wide variation at...
Tony Addison, Lucy Scott, and Annett Victorero Aid effectiveness was a recurrent theme during the UNU-WIDER conference on ‘Foreign Aid: Research and...
The key to successful development over the next 30 years will be to try and find the right balance between the role of the state and the role of the...
Tony Addison and Lucy Scott This article draws upon on-going conversations and debates about the aid effectiveness agenda. It discusses how the agenda...
James Thurlow South Africa is one of the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters. In 2007 it ranked 13th amongst all countries in terms of its overall...
Tony Addison As autumn moves into winter in Helsinki, it is time to bring you the October edition of UNU-WIDER’s newsletter, WIDER Angle. Regular...
Tony Addison As we come to the end of November, the snow has yet to arrive in Helsinki. We continue to enjoy clear skies and spectacular sunsets...
Tony Addison With the end of the year fast approaching, we bring you the last Angle of 2011. Here in Helsinki, the shortest day of the year is nearly...
Robert J. Strom Interest in the study of entrepreneurship has flourished among scholars in recent years. This research has brought to light, among...
Uganda has seen impressive economic growth and substantial poverty reductions over the past few decades. Today, official headcount poverty stands at about 20 per cent. However, recent research relying on non-monetary wealth indicators challenges...
China is emerging as perhaps the most globally significant development finance provider, going far beyond concessional foreign aid. With China’s initiatives to create and foster new multi-lateral finance institutions, and to work in terms of large...
This paper provides a historical overview of the South African trade union movement, followed by a brief discussion of the labour market legislation and institutions formed since 1994. Thereafter, a detailed evaluation of the impact of trade unions...
Local institutional and structural (meso) factors can play a role in mediating the returns to a macro-social policy. I focus on the Brazilian cash-transfer-programme Bolsa Familia and check how contextual features influence the returns to transfers...
This paper examines a broad range of opportunities for addressing the pressing human development needs of low-income countries by using new oil, gas, and mineral discoveries. It assesses how much of an impact can be made on the funding gaps for...
We analyse horizontal inequality in wealth and in years of education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo over the period 2001–13. We find that the trend in horizontal inequality is similar to the trend in vertical inequality over the period of...
This paper considers arguments about Islam and women’s welfare, and, at greater length, how legal systems with Islamic elements treat women, with a focus on how women fare in Islamic family courts. Key methodological issues include how to focus on...
Household budget surveys in sub-Saharan Africa are designed to facilitate poverty measurement and may fail to fully capture consumption in wealthy households. As a result, inequality is likely underestimated. We address upper tier consumption...
The paper looks at the evolution of industry in Uganda examining drivers and constraints since the pre-colonial period in the 1940s to date. It is argued that the state played a central role in industrialization during the pre-colonial and immediate...
Danielle Resnick The victory of the opposition party, the Patriotic Front (PF), in Zambia’s presidential elections this month heralds a new era in...
Markus Jäntti and Juhana Vartiainen Finland is an example of a late but successful state-led industrialization that was carried out rapidly. The...
This paper contributes to the scant body of literature on inequalities among and within ethnic groups in the Philippines by examining both the vertical and horizontal measures in terms of opportunities in accessing basic services such as education...
It’s early July and I’m back in Maputo, Mozambique, looking over the calm sea at the boats that fish the waters for the seafood that makes visiting...
Wim Naudé and James C. MacGee Globally, wealth is very unequally distributed, both within countries and between countries. The UNU-WIDER project on...
Amelia U. Santos-Paulino and Guanghua Wan China and India have become global economic powers. Even at the market exchange rate, China overtook Japan...
Wim Naudé, Amelia U. Santos-Paulino and Mark McGillivray The global economic crisis, which erupted about one year ago with the US sub-prime mortgage...
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...
This article presents an overview of the current special issue ‘Institutions and African Economies’. The findings include: (1) greater prevalence of democratic regimes improved both agricultural productivity and the overall growth of African...
We study gender differences in bilateral bargaining using an artefactual field experiment in rural Uganda, through variation in gender composition of bargaining pairs and in disclosure of identities. Disagreement is common independently of disclosure...
This paper argues that new technologies—for communication, such as mobile phones and the internet, but also for manufacturing, agriculture, energy, and transport—have the potential to bridge many of the productivity gaps between sub-Saharan Africa...
South Africa is considering introducing a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Following a discussion of the motivations for considering a carbon tax, we evaluate potential impacts using a dynamic economywide model linked to an energy...
Biofuels could offer new economic opportunities for low-income countries. We use a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of Tanzania to evaluate different biofuels production options and estimate their impacts on growth and poverty...
The international community rarely calls for a revolution. In this case, it has. A data revolution, says UNU-WIDER Director Finn Tarp. Viet Nam has...
We provide a comprehensive approach for analyzing the evolution of poverty using Mozambique as a case study. Bringing together data from disparate sources, we develop a novel 'back-casting' framework that links a dynamic computable general...
The project centers on the inter-linkages between the major developing countries of Brazil, India, China and South Africa and the global economy, with a special emphasis on the implications of China's growth on smaller economies and the rest of the...
Wim Naudé, Mark McGillivray and Amelia U. Santos-Paulino A vital part of WIDER's research agenda has in recent years focused on the challenges faced...
Following on WIDER's work on Development Finance which has involved three projects since 2002, a development conference on 'Aid: Principles, Policies and Performance' was organized in June 2006. Aid is one of the most challenging development issues...
Globalization offers new opportunities for accelerating development and poverty reduction, but also poses new challenges for policymakers. And there is much concern about the distribution of benefits; in particular whether the poor gain from...
The ReCom – Research and Communication on Foreign Aid – programme produced 247 original studies. More than 300 researchers from 59 countries came together and provided evidence on what does and could work in development, and what can be transferred...
The effects of climate change in Turkey are expected to be significant. The aim of this paper is to quantify the effects of climate change on the overall economy by using an integrated framework incorporating a computable general equilibrium model...
Ghana is relatively rare among Sub-Saharan African countries in having had sustained positive growth every year since the mid-1980s. This paper analyses the nature of the growth and then presents an analysis of the evolution of both consumption...
After many years of relatively slow growth, Tanzania’s national accounts data report accelerated aggregate growth since around 2000. Our analysis shows that there has been somewhat slower growth in private consumption and in sectors such as...
Human capital models imply that both the distribution of education and returns to education affect earnings inequality. Decomposition of these ‘quantity’ and ‘price’ components have been important in understanding changes in earnings inequality in...
Nigeria has recorded impressive growth in the last decade, yet the impact of this growth on poverty reduction remains unclear. This paper appraises spatial and temporal non-monetary multidimensional poverty in Nigeria using the first-order dominance...
This paper investigates how two effects drive wedges between nominal and real inequality estimates. The effects are caused by (i) differences in the composition of consumption over the income distribution coupled with differential inflation of...
The paper explores the paths towards building institutional foundations for inclusive development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Viewing institutional configurations as a system of multiple equilibria, the concepts of endogenous institutions and...
This paper mainly analyses the drivers of economic growth in Kenya and the linkages to the labour market dynamics, with a focus on population growth, its structure, and the prospects of reaping a demographic dividend. This is in recognition that...
This paper discusses the recent history of education aid policy. It highlights an important shift in policy thinking in the international aid architecture that has dominated the global education aid agenda since the early 1990s. It argues that...
This paper reviews the history and controversies associated with capital account management. It first looks at the transition from the acceptance at the Bretton Woods conference of capital account regulations as a normal policy instrument to the...
This year UNU-WIDER is launching several video series to highlight the wide span of policy-relevant work undertaken by the Institute and its worldwide...
Most studies focus on trade effects and organizational outcomes of international standards, neglecting the effect of standards on employees. Using a two-year matched firm–employee panel dataset, this paper finds that the application of standards...
This study represents the first attempt at an integrated approach to assessing the potential impacts of climate change on the national economy of South Africa via a number of (but not necessarily all) impact channels. The study focuses on outcomes by...
Since 1994, a great deal has been accomplished. We argue that poverty reduction was temporarily sidelined in the 2000s. A series of shocks, especially the fuel and food price crisis of 2008, combined with poor productivity growth in agriculture and a...
This paper evaluates fairness in educational achievements through the ordered pair (WEEOp, IEOp) whose components provide: (i) A measure of social welfare which accounts for the achievement of less-advantaged pupils and (ii) a synthetic index of...
Based on a unique panel dataset consisting of both formal and informal firms surveyed every other year from 2005 to 2013, this paper explores the benefits of formalization to the government and firm employees in Vietnam. We find that formalization...
Using the 2004–2005 India Human Development Survey data, we estimate and decompose the earnings of household businesses owned by historically marginalized social groups known as Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SCSTs) and non-SCSTs across the earnings...
We explore a novel first-order dominance (FOD) approach to poverty mapping and compare its properties to small-area estimation. The FOD approach uses census data directly, is straightforward to implement, is multidimensional allowing for a broad...
At the end of the 1980s, Côte d’Ivoire entered a deep macroeconomic crisis that put an end to the often-praised ‘Ivorian miracle’. After the death of the founding father Houphouet-Boigny, unrestrained political competition added to bad economic...
Land tenure arrangements in Africa are generally skewed in favour of males. Compared to males, female plot owners face complex sets of constraints and systemic high tenure insecurity which culminate in low yields. In order to obtain better returns...
We link a bottom-up energy sector model to a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of South Africa in order to examine two of the country’s main energy policy considerations: (i) the introduction of a carbon tax and (ii)...
This paper reviews the current problems of national accounting in Sub-Saharan Africa. With the current uneven application of methods and availability of data, any ranking of countries according to gross domestic product levels is misleading. It is...
This paper studies individual-level labour market transitions and their determinants in South Africa during the zenith and aftermath of the global financial and economic crisis using 2008 to 2010-2011 panel data from the National Income Dynamics...
A cash transfer programme ‘Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty’ has been implemented with the aim of addressing poverty and vulnerability in Ghana. This study looks at the impact of this conditional cash transfer programme on households’ supply of...
Recent writing on industrial policy stresses the need for coordination between the public and private sectors. This paper examines the performance of one such coordination mechanism, Presidential Investors’ Advisory Councils, in Ethiopia, Senegal...
It is widely accepted in recent work in economics and political science that ethnic diversity has a negative impact on the provision of public goods...
Part of Book Achieving Development Success
This paper investigates the impact of income and non-income shocks on child labour using a model in which the household maximizes utility from consumption as well as human capital development of the child. Two types of shocks are considered...
We examine the implications of the rise of a middle class in East and Southern Africa for food consumption patterns and the food system. A unique classification of food items shows that highly processed food has one-third of the purchased food market...
Adam Szirmai Since the late 18th century, the manufacturing sector has been the main engine of growth and catch up. Presently, however, service sector...
This paper investigates inequalities across the major black ethnic groups in South Africa, accounting for 80 per cent of the country’s population. We demonstrate that there is an important ethnic gap in the poverty levels of the Xhosa and the Zulu...
Traditional ‘delta-change’ approach of scenario generation for climate change impact assessment to water resources strongly depends on the selected base-case observed historical climate conditions that the climate shocks are to be super-imposed. This...
In this paper, we apply the first-order dominance (FOD) approach to assessing multidimensional welfare to analyse multidimensional poverty in Zambia in 1996, 2006, and 2010. In addition to evaluating welfare across time and space, we extend the...
The policy advice given by economists in international institutions is influenced by their prior academic work. In my case, applied general equilibrium work resulted both in a belief in the necessity of decentralized markets and in a distrust of...
The study examines the relationship between climatic factors and reported malaria cases using data from 12 districts in Uganda over the period 2000-2011. A panel dataset comprising temperature, temperature standard deviation; minimum humidity...
Ghana’s status as one of the African Lions is linked to the country’s remarkable growth performance, which culminated in the attainment of lower middle-income status. However, employment response to growth has been weak. Additionally, growth has been...
The paper assesses the multilateral development financing system in the light of the replenishments of three key funds in 2013. It argues that the replenishments showed strong continuing support for each institution, but identifies challenges...
Social protection programmes have emerged as one of the most important anti-poverty policy strategies in developing countries. Their effects on poverty and well-being have been widely studied. Yet, there is limited knowledge on how a transfer...
This paper hypothesizes that adaptation to climate change is influenced by the gender of the decision maker of the household. Using a two-wave household panel survey dataset, choice of adaptation strategies employed by female- and male-headed...
In this study, we investigate the relationship between exporting and firm performance using a longer panel dataset of Ethiopian manufacturing firms for the period 1996−2009. We test two hypotheses regarding exporting: selection into exporting versus...
In a recent article in the International Journal of Educational Development we present the results of a systematic review conducted to identify policy...
We conducted a systematic review to identify policy interventions that improve education quality and student learning in developing countries. Relying on a theory of change typology, we highlight three main drivers of change of education quality: (1)...
Projections of regional changes in seasonal surface-air temperature and precipitation for the eastern and western Zambezi River Basin regions are presented. These projections are cast in a probabilistic context based on a numerical hybridization...
In this paper I empirically investigate the early international entrepreneurship of indigenous Chinese firms using data on 3,948 firms surveyed by the World Bank in 2002-03. I find important differences in the extent and motivation of early...
Marco V. Sánchez and Rob Vos Substantial slowdown in progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) should be expected as a consequence of...
The success of new start-up firms often depends on timing. It is valuable for the potential entrepreneur to wait for the right moment before starting a new firm. In this paper we provide a theoretical model to determine the optimal time for starting...
Although development generally refers to a broad concept, the quest for development in Sub-Saharan Africa has been biased by ideological considerations which made abstraction of local conditions and people’s aspirations. The prevalent development...
Over the past decade, Africa has been experiencing an economic resurgence. Yet, the continent is facing several difficult challenges and many economies of the region continue to be among the least competitive in the world. Africa’s competitiveness is...
Alterations in rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures due to climate change will most likely translate into yield reductions in desirable crops. In this particular context, the object of this paper is to lay down findings and results for...
Tanzania’s industrial sector has evolved through various stages since independence in 1961, from nascent and undiversified to state-led import substitution industrialization, and subsequently to de-industrialization under the structural adjustment...
This paper addresses the issue of poor data on Mozambican manufacturing firms. A new dataset (the merged manufacturing database) is merged from provincial industrial databases from each of Mozambique’s 11 provinces. The new dataset is assessed by...
One feature of exporting firms in Cambodia is that they are not of domestic origin but are foreign firms that export from the moment they are established in Cambodia. In this paper we examine the extent to which the presence of foreign-owned export...
When key decision makers of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gather in Washington DC for the IMF’s annual meeting in October, one thing that...
This paper provides evidence on the nature of returns to education in Ghana and confirms the emerging empirical literature on the convexity of returns to education in Ghana. Using a basic Mincerian, model we find that returns to education more than...
Africa’s improved growth performance over the last 15 years provides an opportunity for the continent to transit from recovery to structural transformation. This paper reviews the evolution of development theory and practice, the role of agriculture...
Countries need capacity for a variety of reasons, including sustaining economic growth, generating jobs, reducing poverty, effectively managing development programmes, and transforming societies and economies. A lot of effort has been expended to...
Little investigation has been made to explain why women are less likely than are men to support democracy in sub-Saharan Africa. This gender difference in politics has been found in numerous studies and may hinder the much needed legitimation of...
The distinct features of inclusive growth within the context of sub-Saharan Africa are identified. The anatomy of growth is analysed by exploring the interrelationship among growth, inequality, and poverty. The present growth spell appears to have...
The present study aims to explore economic and socio-demographic factors that influence the household’s probability to switch from firewood to clean fuels in northern Cameroon. The paper employs an ordered probit model to construct cooking patterns...
By Imed Drine Whilst having a global impact, the current financial and economic crisis is clearly affecting certain regions more severely than others...
Climate change scenarios for many Sub-Saharan African countries including Ghana indicate that temperatures will increase while rainfall will either increase or decrease. The potential impact of climate change on economic systems is well-known...
Climate variability poses a major risk to agricultural incomes in Africa. In Ghana, most of the country’s poor people live in the north and households find it difficult to hold back their productive assets during the lean season. This study...
This paper investigates if changes in the minimum wage have influenced changes on the formality and informality rates, and the level of wages in Ecuador. A 12-year panel was built. It allows to overcome the short time span of household data and so to...
With a focus on cities in eastern and southern Africa, this paper draws on recent scholarship and my own research in Lusaka, Zambia, to analyse pathways for, and challenges to, greater social mobility for youth against the background of economic...
To continue its economic growth and create new and better livelihoods, Africa must transform the productive side of its economy. Ongoing globalization—in trade, finance, and technology—opens up new possibilities for structural transformation, but...
Wim Naudé Following the US subprime mortgage crisis of 2007-2008, the world is now staggering from financial to economic crisis as many high-income...
William Lazonick Defined as the act of forming a new business, entrepreneurship is viewed as a prime way in which individualism can contribute to...
At the core of efforts to meet the Sustainable Development Goals lies a commitment to enhance domestic revenue mobilization. Strengthening capacity to...
Better social protection coverage and greater benefits in developing countries would certainly be welcomed by many. More and better forms of social...
Social engineering refers to deliberate attempts, often under the form of legislative moves, to promote changes in customs and norms that hurt the interests of marginalized population groups. This paper explores the analytical conditions under which...
Improving the delivery of quality health services is messy! Vast amounts of knowledge and experience is being generated daily. We need to help capture...
A property rights regime covers rights to use, lease, donate, bequest, and sell assets or collect the incomes generated by assets. A clear and transparent property rights regime facilitates investment and economic growth. While private property is...
Previous UNU-WIDER research has shown that the risk of internal conflict is high in low-income societies rich in natural resources and characterised by ethnic fragmentation. Yet for each country in conflict there are many others with similar...
Recent years have seen a surge of research into the causes of conflict together with its development effects, as well as the design of peace initiatives, peace-keeping and programmes of reconstruction, reconciliation and democratization in ‘post...
Many developing and transition countries have considerable regional variation in average household income, poverty, and in health and educational status. National human development indicators can therefore mislead policy-makers when large regional...
When the Uruguay Round was being negotiated and it was coming to a close, a number of estimates were made about the impact of the agreement on poor countries. Many of the assessments indicated that there would be a net loss for them while others came...
Members of the CFA-zone enjoy currency convertibility, fiscal and monetary policies which are more prudent than SSA as a whole, and a large amount of financial and technical assistance. These advantages do not appear, however, to have resulted in...
The real value of official aid flows fell for much of the 1990s, and private capital flows to low-income countries remain mostly limited. The decline in aid flows may endanger the development process, since they finance much of the development budget...
The real value of official aid flows fell for much of the 1990s, and private capital flows to low-income countries remain mostly limited. The decline in aid flows may endanger the development process, since they finance much of the development budget...
Reconstruction from conflict is a complex and demanding task, and a major challenge for the UN system as well as the wider donor community. National authorities and their donor partners are faced with multiple priorities - rebuilding infrastructure...
In less than a decade, foreign investors have erected more than 3,200 wind turbines across the Isthmus of Techuantepec investing billions of dollars and generating more than 90 per cent of Mexico’s wind energy. The isthmus is also home to more than...
We examine gender differences in ambitions and expectations of jobseekers concerning self-employment, an increasingly proposed option for youth in economies with limited wage employment. Analysing survey data on 2,036 tertiary graduates in Ghana, we...
In India, the percentage of women who delivered in a health facility increased from roughly 35% in 2000 to 79% in 2014. Despite this progress, given...
Many developing and transition countries have considerable regional variation in average household income, poverty, and in health and educational status. National human development indicators can therefore mislead policy-makers when large regional...
Many developing and transition countries have considerable regional variation in average household income, poverty, and in health and educational status. National human development indicators can therefore mislead policy-makers when large regional...
The clustering of industries in specific areas has improved industrial productivity in a number of countries. Since the mid-1990s in Tunisia, concerted policies have been introduced which focus on improving the efficiency of the labour force, and...
What types of businesses benefit or suffer due to geographic clustering? Data available from Cambodia on competition and spillovers—at both village- and commune-level—is useful to answer a number of questions about the effects of clustering and the...
Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa, poor in natural resources, and with low levels of human development. Its economy remains agricultural and focused on food crops and cotton production. Over the last twenty years it has experienced...
Evidence obtained from detailed household surveys in Mozambique during the 2008-09 food price shock reveals just how pronounced the impact of food price inflation can be on children’s overall nutrition status. Moderate and severe underweight...
The majority of income inequality occurs at the tails of the income distribution The Gini coefficient does not provide a representative measure of income inequality When the top 10% of income earners expand their share of national income it often...
The Egyptian food system has been affected by both global food markets and domestic factors. During the recent global food price crisis, an estimated 30–40 percent of the price fluctuations in the global food market were transmitted to Egypt’s food...
In academic discourse, it has become almost ritualistic to begin a piece on foreign aid by highlighting the sharp controversies over its effectiveness...
The impact of the 2007–08 food price crisis in Brazil was relatively subdued compared with what took place in many other developing countries. Because the crisis potentially undermined both social inclusion and price stability, both important...
The global food crisis in 2007–08 raised concerns everywhere, including in China. However, despite China’s highly-integrated domestic and international markets for many agricultural commodities, the effect of the crisis in China was only moderate...
Global food price hikes during 2007-08 resulted in a sharp rise in staple food prices in Bangladesh, which in turn led to a significant rise in the number of households falling below the poverty line. On the political front, Bangladesh was run by an...
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) give aid to Africa a new emphasis. Yet aid flows to Africa have trended downward over the last decade, and as a consequence more Africans now live in poverty. This is especially true of Sub-Saharan Africa. Any...
Many developing and transition countries have considerable regional variation in average household income, poverty, and in health and educational status. National human development indicators can therefore mislead policy-makers when large regional...
Summary measures of human well-being are increasingly used to compare and monitor performance within and across countries. The UNDP's Human Development Index (HDI) is one of a number of measures which have done much to refocus attention on the...
Getting an accurate picture of poverty and inequality trends and patterns in the world's most populous country is central to understanding changes in global inequality and poverty – these alter significantly when China is included or excluded...
Globalization offers new opportunities for accelerating development and poverty reduction, but also poses new challenges for policymakers. And there is much concern about the distribution of benefits; in particular whether the poor gain from...
Part of Book External Finance for Private Sector Development
As one of globalisation's most visible dimensions, foreign direct investment (FDI) is central to the prospects for developing countries in the world economy. Key issues include the direction of causation between FDI and growth, the potential role of...
Getting an accurate picture of poverty and inequality trends and patterns in the world’s most populous country is central to understanding changes in global inequality and poverty – these alter significantly when China is included or excluded. China...