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From the Editor's Desk (February 2012)![Placeholder](https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/expert_45x45/public/tony_addison_87363af4b3de300e5211e81b8d521d70.png?itok=-MPVkzbW)
Tony Addison It’s now February, and Helsinki remains deep in snow. We had an extended blizzard last weekend, with temperatures hovering around minus...
Tony Addison It’s now February, and Helsinki remains deep in snow. We had an extended blizzard last weekend, with temperatures hovering around minus...
Lucy Scott and Annett Victorero The ReCom—Research and Communication on Foreign Aid programme held its first results meeting on the topic of ‘Aid...
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...
Luc Christiaensen and Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen If a person suddenly becomes poor, for example, due to an unexpected death or illness in the family...
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...
Luis-Felipe Lopez-Calva [1] The concept of social class and specifically middle class, has been widely discussed in sociology and other social...
Talent (combining creativity, education, skills, and knowledge) is associated with human capital and provides a very valuable economic resource. In the past, the emigration of human capital from developing countries raised fears because of the...
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...
We study a model of human capital driven growth, where the parent’s human capital serves as a productive input in the child’s human capital production only when that of the former exceeds a minimum level required to intellectually contribute to the...
This paper discusses dimensions of inequality in sub-Saharan Africa and their causes. It starts with a review of the empirical evidence about inequality during the colonial period as well as the post-independence era. Then it discusses the forces...
Vocational training programmes, like South Africa’s learnership programme, which combine classroom learning and on-the-job training seem like the type of intervention which can create skills, get young people into jobs quicker, and reduce youth...
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...
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...
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...
African countries are facing great opportunities but also formidable challenges in accelerating economic growth and sustaining a high level of economic performance. The experiences of East Asian countries may offer valuable insights for African...
This paper examines the changing nature of occupational labour-market trends in South Africa and the resulting impact on wages. We observe high levels of demand for skilled labour that have intensified a trend already established before 1994. Over...
This paper examines Chile Solidario, a social protection programme that provides poor households in Chile with preferential access to a conditional cash transfer programme designed to facilitate investments in children’s health and education. We...
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 paper discusses new ideas in growth theory focusing on how to make sustained growth feasible. It first reviews models that broadened the notion of capital to include human capital and the state of technology. The paper next surveys models which...
This paper considers the rationale for and limitations to selective export promotion policies in developing countries, with a focus on manufactured exports. It draws upon the experience of the most successful exporters in the developing world - the...
Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world. At least 45 per cent of the population cannot meet their minimum basic needs. Human development indicators are amongst Africa's worst, including a very high level of illiteracy. The country was...
The aim of this paper is to review the principal assumptions and aspects of the unitary household model and collective models of household behaviour. Empirical studies are presented to assess whether the theories can offer adequate descriptions of...
The aim of this paper is to find which of two theories of capital structure—trade-off theory or pecking order theory—best explains the capital structure decision of non-state firms during the post-transition process in Vietnam. We also investigate...
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...
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...
This paper explores entrepreneurship amongst return migrants, how their business locations and characteristics differ from other businesses, and the implications for rural-urban inequality. First, we examine, amongst returnees, the determinants of...
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...
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)...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
Income inequality has risen in many parts of the world during the past decades. Rising inequality is no longer a problem of only Latin American and Sub-Saharan African countries. Some OECD countries, and recently also East Asian countries, have...
This paper investigates the causal impact of a randomized video intervention designed to study the determinants of parental time investments in early childhood among low-income parents. We designed and screened a video that provided information and...
Several sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries have achieved substantial economic growth in the past 30 years. Likewise, access to education has considerably expanded, as reflected in rising enrolment rates for both men and women. Female labour force...
We examine inequality convergence over the past three decades and ask if environmentally related impacts on health, and their effect on human capital, are responsible for the slow rate of inequality reduction in countries. Though higher initial...
The volume, Social Mobility in Developing Countries: Concepts, Methods, and Determinants, brings together leading scholars from a range of social science disciplines working on a variety of issues related to social mobility. Three motivations guide...
The opening keynote of the recent WIDER Development Conference, COVID-19 and development – effects and new realities for the Global South, was given...
Historically, the issue of intergenerational evolution of income, wealth, and socioeconomic status has been the subject of considerable research in the analysis of inequality. Such intergenerational linkages are anticipated to come from two sources...
This paper studies the general equilibrium impact of civil war in Sierra Leone. I first use an instrumental variable (IV) strategy and geographic conflict variation to estimate reduced-form effects. I show that civil war leads to affected areas...
Promoting social mobility is an essential task of development, and a multi-faceted one. Precarious livelihoods are widespread. Containing downward mobility is an important precondition for sustaining upward mobility. Policies of human capital...
The volume, Social Mobility in Developing Countries: Concepts, Methods and Determinants, brings together leading scholars from several disciplines to advance research practice on social mobility. Three sets of motivations guide this joint effort...
Part of Book Social Mobility in Developing Countries
by Andrés Solimano There is a growing recognition of the importance for economic growth and development of ‘intangibles’ such as technology, ideas...
Estimating the impact of HIV/AIDS epidemic on economic growth is challenging because of endogeneity concerns. In this paper, we use novel data on male circumcision and distance from the first HIV outbreak as instrumental variables for the HIV/AIDS...
Using a panel vector autoregressive model this paper investigates the dynamic and endogeneous contribution of tourism to output based on a sample of 40 African countries for the period 1990–2006. Results from the study confirm tourism to be an...
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 number of land certification programmes around the world has been growing. In theory, the formalization of land rights should increase land tenure...
Using a panel vector autoregressive model this paper investigates the dynamic and endogeneous contribution of tourism to output based on a sample of 40 African countries for the period 1990–2006. Results from the study confirm tourism to be an...
The feeble results of liberalization policies in Latin America are explained in terms of a multiple steady state model including a dynamic human development trap, endogenous technological change, technology transfer and trade. Divergent and...
Left-of-centre governments emphasized fiscally-prudent but more equitable macroeconomic, tax, social expenditure and labour policies A drop in the premium paid to skilled workers following a rapid expansion of secondary education decreased wage...
This paper is related to the literature on the effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on the labour market of host countries. Labour market literature has focused on the demand side of FDI; that is, increasing wage inequality by demanding more...
The authors present a model of regional catching-up and development without scale effects. Regional growth is driven by technological imitation which is determined by positive externalities from international trade, the regions’ geography, and...
What exactly is spatial inequality? Why does it matter? And what should be the policy response to it? These questions have become important in recent years as the spatial dimensions of inequality have begun to attract considerable policy interest. In...
This book presents development strategies and lessons based on a large range of 'success' countries across the developing world. In addition to the country cases, it presents regional and overall syntheses that cover orthodox vs. heterodox policies...
Part of Book The International Mobility of Talent
Entrepreneurs, technical experts, professionals, international students, writers, and artists are among the most highly mobile people in the global economy today. These talented elite often originate from developing countries and migrate to...
Part of Book Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises in Vietnam
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...
This paper estimates the relationship between differences in skills measured among within-country ethnic groups and individual human capital accumulation in eight African countries. Our results show that the skills of an individual in these countries...
High demand for researchers and scientists has led to an increase in skilled migration in recent years. The paper focuses on improving our understanding of the push and pull factors affecting the migration decisions of researchers and scientists from...
Part of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
This paper examines macroeconomic performance and policies in small Pacific island economies (SPIEs). These economies are highly prone to various supply shocks and face severe obstacles to development arising from their geography and demography...
Sub-Saharan Africa continues to post one of the highest gender gaps in educational outcomes in the world. Gender gaps in educational outcomes might be attributed to an uneven allocation of household resources towards the schooling of boys and girls...
Human capital for development Conventional wisdom on economic growth and development emphasizes the importance of human capital. But is the link...
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’...
The objective here is to understand how the mobility of technical talent might be changing the structural relationship between rich and poor countries. This paper examines the under-researched relationship between India and Japan in the context of...
This paper provides a synthesis of the three papers on the non-Nordic developed economies, Ireland, Japan and Switzerland along the following themes: role of the state, openness, education and human capital, and macroeconomic stability. It then draws...
This paper analyses the impact of different levels of educational attainment on local growth and economic disparities in China. By applying decomposition analysis and quantile regression techniques to a set of sub-provincial level regional data...
This article evaluates the Chinese labour market by examining the role of human capital in wage determination. Using data from China’s Household Nutrition Survey, we estimate the returns to education in state-owned, collective-owned and private...
Human talent is a key economic resource and a source of creative power in science, technology, business, arts and culture and other activities. Talent has a large economic value and its mobility has increased with globalization, the spread of new...
We use data on inter-generational gains in educational attainment by some 500,000 individuals in 200 West Bengal villages to explore gender-differentiated impacts of land reform on human capital accumulation at the individual level. While there are...
The paper reviews the steady and widespread decline in income inequality which has taken place in most of Latin America over 2002-10 and which––if continued for another 2-3 years––would reduce the average regional income inequality to pre...
Part of Book Understanding Inequality and Poverty in China
Part of Book Inequality, Growth and Poverty in an Era of Liberalization and Globalization
Part of Book Inequality and Growth in Modern China
Part of Book The International Mobility of Talent
Part of Book The International Mobility of Talent
Part of Book The International Mobility of Talent
Part of Book The International Mobility of Talent
Part of Book Resource Abundance and Economic Development
Part of Book The International Mobility of Talent
In response to the need expressed by the UN General Assembly, an economic vulnerability index (EVI) has been defined by the Committee for Development Policy. The present paper, which refers to this index, first examines how a structural economic...
Part of Journal Special Issue Focus
Part of Book Falling Inequality in Latin America
Despite the large attention received in the global development debate over the past years, gender inequalities still strongly persist throughout the...
Part of Journal Special Issue Vulnerability in Development
Part of Book Vulnerability in Developing Countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Entrepreneurship, Developing Countries and Development Economics
Part of Book The Poor under Globalization in Asia, Latin America, and Africa
This paper examines the nature and evolution of horizontal and vertical human-capital inequality in South Africa since the end of apartheid. Using census data from 1996, 2001, and 2011, we use different measures of years of schooling to examine the...
Part of Book The Role of Elites in Economic Development
Women in most parts of the developing world are under-represented in the workplace and poorly paid. One reason for this is the gender gap in education...
Start-ups of new firms are important for economic growth. However, start-up rates differ significantly between countries and within regions of the same country. A large empirical literature studies the reasons for this and attempts to identify the...
Both health and education are essential for reducing poverty. Unfortunately, the two are often interlinked and in many countries both are severely...
This paper provides a synthesis of the country cases in the Middle East and North Africa: Oman, Bahrain, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Although these countries differ in terms of resource endowments and economic evolution, they share common...
Part of Book African Youth and the Persistence of Marginalization
The list of illnesses afflicting Angolan society is a long one: political instability, civil war, macroeconomic mismanagement, and the desperation born of poverty. A profound sense of uncertainty afflicts all levels of society-the government (and its...
Using panel datasets from Mexico and Chile for the 2000s, we examine the determinants of middle-class intra-generational mobility. We define the middle class by means of a latent index of economic wellbeing that is less sensitive to short-term...
This paper analyses the patterns of export productivity and trade specialization profiles in the China, Brazil, India and South Africa, and in other regional groupings. In doing so, the investigation calculates a time varying export productivity...
While much attention has been focused on the so-called ‘digital divide’ between Africa and the industrialized world, very scant attention has been devoted to the wide variations in the levels of digitalization of African countries. Whereas countries...
Tunisia’s recent growth and development performance relative to countries in its region, and relative to countries at similar levels of development in other parts of the world, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, have been notable. An analysis of...
26 March 2014 Finn Tarp Foreign aid is often seen as different from other forms of investment, and some argue that rather than having a positive...
22 August 2013 Roger Williamson Given the high growth rates since 2000 and low labour costs, Africa could develop manufacturing industry, agro...
In this paper, we formalize the view that economic development requires high rates of productive entrepreneurship, and this requires an efficient matching between entrepreneurial talent and production technologies. We first explore the role of...
The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution of recruitment of elites due to globalization. In the last century, the main change that occurred in the way the Western world trained its elites is that meritocracy became the basis for their...
International migration analysis often focuses on mass migration rather than on the international mobility of elites, which is the focus of this paper. The paper offers a three-fold classification of elites: (a) knowledge elites, (b) entrepreneurial...
Part of Book Trade Policy, Industrialization, and Development
Part of Book From Conflict to Recovery in Africa
The discussions in this book offer an informative & compelling account of the recent changes in development & the main political & economic trends shaping the international environment. It focuses on the changing global scene & its impact on...
Part of Journal Special Issue FDI to Developing Countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Spatial Inequality and Development
Part of Book Information Technology, Productivity, and Economic Growth
Part of Book The Evolving New Global Environment for the Development Process
Part of Book The Evolving New Global Environment for the Development Process
Part of Book The Evolving New Global Environment for the Development Process
Part of Book The Evolving New Global Environment for the Development Process
Part of Book The Evolving New Global Environment for the Development Process
Part of Book The Evolving New Global Environment for the Development Process
Part of Book The Evolving New Global Environment for the Development Process
Part of Book The Evolving New Global Environment for the Development Process
Part of Book The Evolving New Global Environment for the Development Process
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...
30 October 2014 Dominik Etienne and Annett Victorero The last decade has witnessed a revival of concern over the impact of high-income concentration...
Tony Addison As the snow continues to lie deep across Helsinki, UNU-WIDER is putting the last touches to the ReCom results meeting on ‘aid and the...
Tony Addison We start the new year at a fast pace, preparing for the ReCom results meeting on ‘Aid and the Social Sectors’ in Stockholm on 13th March...
This paper discusses the characteristics and determinants of entrepreneurial behaviour in Uganda. It is based on a recent survey of urban and rural entrepreneurs, executed in May 2008. The main dependent variables are business success, gestation...
Globally, around 250 million children under the age of five do not meet key development milestones, which reduces their ability to reach their full...
Using a large-scale novel panel dataset (2005–14) on schools from the Indian state of Assam, we test for the impact of violent conflict on female students’ enrollment rates. We find that a doubling of average killings in a district-year leads to a 13...
Health is an asset with an intrinsic value as well as an instrumental value. Good health is a source of wellbeing and highly valued throughout the world. Health is not only the absence of illness, but capacity to develop a person’s potential. Health...
This paper studies the distribution of output per worker between the years 1980 and 2000 in different country groups. The study uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to decompose the changes in the distribution of labour productivity into changes in...
Relying on a recently developed decomposition framework, this paper explores spatial distribution of innovation capability in China. It is found that at the regional level, China's inequality in innovation capability increased from 1995 to 2004. At...
The paper views migration of skills from a perspective of new industrial policy. It introduces two types of search networks: open migration chains and diaspora networks. Migration chains are sequences of educational or job opportunities which allows...
This paper charts the complex dynamics of the movement of technical talent in the world economy and assesses broadly the impact of such mobility on both sending and receiving countries. Based on secondary data and primary information from the Indian...