Blog

Globally, around 250 million children under the age of five do not meet key development milestones, which reduces their ability to reach their full...

• Social mobility
• Human capital
• Cognitive ability

Working Paper

Countering recent rises in many countries of inequality in income and wealth is widely recognized as a major development challenge. This is so from an ethical perspective and because greater inequality is perceived to be detrimental to key...

• Inequality
• Growth
• Health

Working Paper

Although baseline data for post-conflict situations are frequently unavailable, there is a clear deterioration in the health conditions of populations during and following conflict. Excess mortality and morbidity, displaced populations, and...

• Health
• Social conflict
• War

Working Paper

Atmospheric emissions urgently need to reduce for natural gas to fulfill its potential role in the energy transition to achieve the Paris Agreement on climate change. This paper establishes the magnitude and trends of flaring and venting in oil and...

• Energy transition
• Gas
• Health

Working Paper

This second paper on hydrocarbon gas flaring and venting builds on our first, which evaluated the economic and social cost (SCAR) of wasted natural gas. These emissions must be reduced urgently for natural gas to meet its potential as an energy...

• Energy transition
• Gas
• Health

Journal Article

We implement a lab-in-the-field experiment among childcare workers in Chandigarh, India, to evaluate discriminatory attitudes of the Hindu workers toward Muslim children. We use a third-party allocation game that controls for selfish payoff...

• Discrimination in employment
• Field experiments
• Health

Book Chapter

Part of Book Social Mobility in Developing Countries

• Social mobility
• Human capital
• Cognitive ability

Blog

by Carl-Gustav Lindén March 2013

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...

• Economic assistance and foreign aid
• Education
• Health

Blog

by Roger Williamson October 2013

17 October 2013 James Foster describes the importance of moving beyond income poverty as a way of assessing 'who is poor?' and 'how poor?'...

• Economic growth
• Education
• Poverty measurement

Journal Special Issue

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...

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Can agricultural development programs improve health-related outcomes? We exploit a spatial discontinuity in the coverage of a large-scale agricultural extensionprogram in Uganda to causally identify its effects on malaria. We find that eligibility...

• Administrative law
• Agriculture
• Economic development

Working Paper

This paper tests using survey data from China whether individual health is associated with income and community-level income inequality. Although poor health and high inequality are key features of many developing countries, most of the earlier...

• Equality and inequality
• Health
• Income

Working Paper

There is a dearth of evidence on the evolution of occupational health in the developing world and on the extent to which it has been influenced by (1) the pattern of structural transformation in these economies and (2) integration with global markets...

• Structural change
• Health
• Globalization

Research Brief

• SDGs
• Poverty
• Growth

Working Paper

Nutritional status at a young age is positively associated with an individual’s total human capital accumulated. Higher levels of human capital are in turn strongly correlated with an individual’s economic and social well-being. Health is one such...

• Children
• Econometric models
• Health

Working Paper

In this paper, we present new projections for a range of global poverty-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically, extreme monetary poverty, undernutrition, stunting, child mortality, maternal mortality, and access to clean water and...

• Poverty
• Growth
• Nutrition

Blog

by Nana Mensah Abrampah June 2017

Improving the delivery of quality health services is messy! Vast amounts of knowledge and experience is being generated daily. We need to help capture...

• Health
• Quality of care
• SDG3

Working Paper

The hypothesis that ethnic diversity has a negative impact on public goods provision is widely accepted. Notably, most work on this issue fails to distinguish adequately between national versus subnational governance. We find that subnational...

• Education
• Health
• Public goods

Working Paper

The rapid economic growth experienced within the past two decades in China highly correlates with childhood overweightness. The epidemic has become an issue of grave concern. A principal factor considered to be responsible for the epidemic in the...

• Children
• Econometric models (Economic development)
• Health

Journal Special Issue

The papers in this special issue were originally presented at a World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) Conference on Health Equity in 2006. They look beyond the current literature in terms of measures of inequality, indicators...

• Economic development
• Equality and inequality
• Health

Working Paper

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...

• Extractives
• Education
• Revenue

Working Paper

One-third of married women are sterilized in India. This is largely due to family planning programs that put a strong emphasis on ‘permanent’ contraceptive methods rather than temporary ones. However, little is known about potential adverse effects...

• Development
• Human fertility
• Gender

Blog

Primum non nocere — first, do no harm. This most basic tenet of medical care is routinely violated in clinics and hospitals around the world today...

• Quality of care
• Health
• SDG3

Working Paper

The quality of care provided by health systems contributes towards efforts to reach sustainable development goal 3 on health and wellbeing. There is growing evidence that the impact of health interventions is undermined by poor quality of care in...

• Health interventions
• Health systems
• Quality of care

Working Paper

Official poverty figures in Uganda are flawed by the fact that the underlying poverty lines are based on a single national food basket that was constructed in the early 1990s. In this paper, we estimate a new set of poverty lines that accounts for...

• Econometric models (Economic development)
• Game theory
• Health

Book Chapter

Controversy over the aggregate impact of foreign aid has focused on reduced form estimates of the aid-growth link. The causal chain, through which aid affects developmental outcomes including growth, has received much less attention. We address this...

• Capital investments
• Economic development
• Health

Working Paper

Malaria still claims a heavy human and economic toll, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa. Even though the causality between malaria and poverty is presumably bi-directional, malaria plays a role in the economic difficulties of the region. This...

• Economic development
• Health
• Poverty

Working Paper

The objectives of the study are three-fold: to investigate who are vulnerable to welfare loss from health shocks, what are the household responses to cope with the economic burden of health shocks and if policy responses like state health insurance...

• Health
• Healthcare
• Households

Journal Article

Improvements in health-care quality can contribute to healthier populations. However, many global and national health strategies are not sufficiently considering the issues of measuring and improving health-care quality in lowresource settings. The...

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Objective To develop a composite measure of primary care quality and apply it to Haiti’s primary care system. Methods Using the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative’s framework, we defined four domains of primary care service delivery: (i)...

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Objective To evaluate the impact on the quality of the care provided for childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia in Bihar, India, of a large-scale, social franchising and telemedicine programme – the World Health Partners’ Sky Program. Methods We...

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Objective To develop a novel measure to characterize human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) programme quality at health facilities in Kenya and explore its associations with patient- and facility-level characteristics. Methods We developed a composite...

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Existing definitions and measurement approaches of quality of health care often fail to address the complexities involved in understanding quality of care. It is perceptions of quality, rather than clinical indicators of quality, that drive service...

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Objective To evaluate the impact of a performance-based financing scheme on maternal and neonatal health service quality in Malawi. Methods We conducted a non-randomized controlled before and after study to evaluate the effects of district- and...

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Objective To assess compliance with infection prevention and control practices in primary health care in Kenya. Methods We used an observational, patient-tracking tool to assess compliance with infection prevention and control practices by 1680...

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

Problem The lack of proper water and sanitation infrastructures and poor hygiene practices in health-care facilities reduces facilities’ preparedness and response to disease outbreaks and decreases the communities’ trust in the health services...

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Working Paper

This paper explores the intergenerational effects of parental health shocks using longitudinal data from the Young Lives project conducted in Andhra Pradesh, India. It is found that health shocks to poorer parents reduce investments in children...

• Econometric models (Economic development)
• Economic development projects
• Health

Blog

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...

• Education
• Health
• Public goods

Working Paper

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...

• Ecology
• Environmental economics
• Health

Book Chapter

Part of Book Extractive Industries

• Extractives
• Education
• Revenue

Working Paper

This paper describes approaches to the measurement and explanation of income-related inequality and inequity in health care financing, health care utilization and health and considers the applicability and the feasibility of these methods in low...

• Equality and inequality
• Decision making (Finance, Public)
• Health

Working Paper

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...

• Public (Decision making)
• Health
• Poverty

Working Paper

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...

• Human fertility
• Health
• Labour supply

Working Paper

This paper examines the impact of the transition to a market economy on health and education outcomes in transitional Asia, with particular focus on the case of Vietnam. After examining a variety of empirical evidence, several lessons emerge. First...

• Economic growth
• Education
• Health

Working Paper

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...

• Education
• Health
• International agencies

Working Paper

• Children
• Food security
• Health

Book Chapter

From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.

• Family policy
• Human fertility
• Health

Book Chapter

From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.

• Economic development
• Health
• Poverty

Book Chapter

Part of Book Towards Gender Equity in Development

• Missing women
• Mortality
• Gender

Working Paper

This paper aims to assess the impact that the impoverishment process has had on IPD health dynamics and micronutrient-related morbidity via the changes which have occurred in food consumption in terms of average intake, its distribution and the...

• Consumption
• Economic conditions
• Health

Working Paper

• Econometric models (Economic development)
• Health
• International agencies

Working Paper

• Decision making
• Health
• Healthcare

Working Paper

Radical and simultaneous economic reforms were implemented in many developing countries, especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many of these reforms - structural adjustment programmes - were implemented with...

• Balance of payments
• Economic development
• Structural adjustment (Economic policy)

Working Paper

• Health
• Theory of Knowledge
• Economic power

Journal Article

This paper examines the effects of health-oriented food tax reforms on the distribution of tax payments, food demand and health outcomes. We offer an illustration of how one can take into account the uncertainty related to both demand estimation and...

• Health
• Taxation

Working Paper

This paper looks at the prospects of a demographic dividend in Africa in the near future. While acknowledging that the fertility declines which change population age structures and thus dependency ratios have been slow to begin and often seem to have...

• Family policy
• Human fertility
• Health

Blog

Several large-scale efforts have been made to combat malaria in the last decade under the Millennium Development Goals, and while these have led to a...

• Administrative law
• Agriculture
• Economic development

Working Paper

• Consumption
• Food security
• Health

Working Paper

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...

• Game theory
• Health
• Healthcare

Policy Brief

• Health
• SDG3
• Universal Health Coverage

Journal Article

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...

• Economic growth
• Economic equilibrium
• Health

Working Paper

Economic research on labour migration in the developing world has traditionally focused on the role played by the remittances of overseas migrant labour in the sending country’s economy. Recently, due in no small part to the availability of rich...

• Health
• Labour migration
• Children

Working Paper

We present a unified structural equation modelling framework for the regression-based decomposition of rank-dependent indicators of socioeconomic inequality of health and compare it with a simple ordinary least squares regression. The structural...

• Children
• Econometric models (Economic development)
• Equality and inequality

Working Paper

This paper discusses the main changes in infant, child and maternal mortality which have occurred over 1960-1995 in Sub-Saharan Africa and analyses the main factors responsible for the observed shifts in these health trends. To do so, the paper...

• Health
• Healthcare
• Health expenditures

Working Paper

This paper examines the short- and long-term determinants of the mortality due to cardiovascular diseases (CVD) among the working-age population in Russia. Why Russia? Why CVD mortality? Why the working-age population? Russia is the Eastern European...

• Health
• Population

Working Paper

Parental human capital and endowments may affect children’s human capital, which in turn may affect children’s earning and occupations and thus affect social mobility. This paper focuses on what we know about these possible links in low- and middle...

• Social mobility
• Human capital
• Cognitive ability

Working Paper

This study aims to examine the drivers of inequality of opportunity in health outcome among children below 5 years of age, using the Sudanese 2014 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. It investigates the variation in inequality across and within...

• Health
• Children
• Inequality of opportunities

Working Paper

The consequences of health professional mobility have become a prominent public policy concern. This paper considers trends in mobility amongst doctors and nurses and the consequences for health systems. Policy responses are shifting from a reactive...

• Emigration and immigration
• Health
• Labour mobility

Working Paper

This paper investigates the extent to which the decline in child mortality over the last three decades can be attributed to economic growth. In doing this, it exploits the considerable variation in growth over this period, across states and over time...

• Children
• Economic development
• Health

Working Paper

This paper examines whether, in India, discriminatory practices by government-employed child caregivers along religious lines, lead to differential health outcomes among the care receiving children. Child caregivers participate in a novel allocation...

• Discrimination in employment
• Field experiments
• Health

Working Paper

The Millennium Development Goals have become the frame of reference for most of the development community: the standard by which performance will ultimately be judged. Given their importance, considerable attention has been paid as to whether these...

• Education
• Equality and inequality
• Health

Working Paper

This paper investigates the effect of a food subsidy programme in India on child malnutrition by addressing the following linked questions using household survey data that includes information on usage of the public distribution system. First, does...

• Children
• Health
• Malnutrition

Journal Article

This paper studies some empirical implications of models with limited risk sharing due to the imperfect enforceability of contracts. We test whether the amount by which public transfers reduce private transfers is affected by features of the economy...

• Education
• Health
• Households

Working Paper

Relative to developed countries, there are far fewer women than men in parts of the developing world. Estimates suggest that more than 200 million women are demographically ‘missing’ worldwide. To explain the global ‘missing women’ phenomenon...

• Missing women
• Mortality
• Gender

Blog

by Tony Addison March 2014

26 March 2014 Tony Addison​ Looking over recent UNU-WIDER publications, I am struck by the diversity of topics and countries that we have managed to...

• Equality and inequality
• Health
• Poverty

Book Chapter

Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Econometric models
• Game theory
• Health

Blog

17 April 2013 Tony Addison and Miguel Niño-Zarazúa We learnt much from the ReCom Results meeting on 13th March in Stockholm on aid and the social...

• Children
• Economic assistance and foreign aid
• Economic growth

Journal Article

Part of Journal Special Issue Development Assistance for Peacebuilding

• Economic assistance and foreign aid
• Health
• International agencies

Research Brief

The most successful projects and programmes are those that give local partners real ownership over the development process. Aid to health is not always allocated to the areas where it is most needed. Aid fragmentation creates extra costs for...

• Economic assistance and foreign aid
• Economic policy
• Health

Working Paper

The global framework for financing development, adopted in 2015, places great emphasis on mobilizing domestic resources to finance the Sustainable Development Goals, which include universal healthcare. In a recent paper Reeves et al. (2015) attribute...

• Taxation
• Health
• Resource revenues

Journal Article

Average adult height is a physical measure of the biological standard of living of a population. While the biological and economic standards of living of a population are very different concepts, they are linked and may empirically move together. If...

• Economic development
• Economic growth
• Health

Blog

by Tony Addison September 2015

This article is part of UNU’s “17 Days, 17 Goals” series, featuring research and commentary in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development...

• Business enterprises
• Capital investments
• Economic assistance and foreign aid

Blog

by Tony Addison September 2015

UNU-WIDER had a busy September. We celebrated our 30th birthday with some 600 people at our three-day conference on ‘Mapping the Future of Development...

• Agriculture
• Business enterprises
• Capital investments

Working Paper

This paper primarily focuses on how global funding has supported interventions that have proven to be successful in reducing maternal, newborn, and child mortality around the world. The growth rate of development assistance targeted towards these...

• Children
• Economic assistance and foreign aid
• Economic development projects

Book Chapter

This chapter examines the link between health indicators, environmental variables, and economic development, and the consequences of this relationship on economic convergence. In the early stage of economic development, the gain from income growth...

• Environment and economic development
• Environment
• Gross national product