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From the Editor's Desk (June-July 2012)
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...
183 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Blog
Inclusive Growth in Africa
24 September 2013 Roger Williamson Another big weekend for UNU-WIDER. The stage was well set on Thursday 19 September for a consideration of...
Journal Article
Firm-Level Corruption in VietnamThis article uses panel data from a survey of small- and medium-sized enterprises in Vietnam to uncover which firms pay bribes and which do not. We also study how bribe paying evolved between 2005 and 2007 and test how the determinants of bribes...
Working Paper
Measuring the Labour Income Share of Developing CountriesThis paper is the first to address the challenges of measuring the labour income share of developing countries. The poor availability and reliability of national accounts data, and the fact that self-employed people, whose labour income is hard to...
Blog
Conflict and Entrepreneurship in AfghanistanTommaso Ciarli, Saeed Parto and Maria Savona Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world with an estimated per capita income of 300...
Working Paper
On the Effects of Formalization on Taxes and WagesBased 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...
Working Paper
Minimum Wage and Informality in EcuadorThis 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...
Research Brief
Clustering, competition, and spillover effects in CambodiaWhat 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...
Journal Special Issue
Entrepreneurship and ConflictEntrepreneurs are often adversely affected by violent conflict such as civil war. At the same time though entrepreneurs may contribute to or even benefit from violent conflict and other ‘destructive’ and ‘unproductive’ activities that limit economic...
Journal Article
On the Short- and Medium-Term Effects of FormalisationThis paper analyses the consequences of formalisation on the performance of informal firms, using a panel dataset from Vietnam. We find that switching firms (before switching) have higher profit and value added compared to non-switching firms...
Journal Article
Benefits of FormalizationBased on unique panel data consisting of both formal and informal firms, this paper uses a matched double difference approach to examine the relationship between legal status and firm level outcomes in micro, small and medium manufacturing...
Working Paper
Informality, Growth, and Development in AfricaThe informal sector makes up an overwhelming share of both gross domestic product and total employment in Africa. In this paper, we lay out some of the basic characteristics of the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa, relevant institutions, and...
Working Paper
Non-formal Institutions, Informal Economies, and the Politics of InclusionAfrica’s formal economies responded poorly to economic reform measures in the 1980s and 1990s while informal markets and institutions responded dynamically and proved to be more resilient. Using comparative analysis of African informal economies...
Journal Article
Risk sharing and public transfersWe use public transfers in the form of food aid to test for the presence of risk sharing arrangements at the village level in rural Ethiopia. We reject perfect risk-sharing, but find evidence of partial risk-sharing via transfers. There is also...
Working Paper
Employment and productivity growth in Tanzania’s service sectorDespite Tanzania’s rapid recent growth, the vast majority of employment creation has been in informal services. This paper addresses the role that different subsectors of formal and informal services have played in Tanzania’s growth. It finds that...
Blog
Inequality in South Africa - An Interview with Murray Leibbrandt
At the UNU-WIDER Inequality conference September 2014 we interviewed Murray Leibbrandt, Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town on...
Working Paper
Aid and Governance in Vulnerable StatesBangladesh and Pakistan had very divergent experiences with aid after 1971. Politics in Pakistan was less inclusive in terms of opportunities for intermediate class political entrepreneurs. In this context, the significant role of military aid to...
Journal Article
Aid and Governance in Vulnerable StatesPart of Journal Special Issue Aid and Institution-Building in Fragile States
Working Paper
The Development of Small Entrepreneurship in RussiaThe paper summarises the findings of field research projects on emerging Russian entrepreneurship carried out by the author over a six-year period. The main stages of small and medium enterprise (SME) formation in Russia since the late 1980s are...
Book Chapter
Can Financial Markets be Tapped to Help Poor People Cope with Weather Risks?Part of Book Insurance Against Poverty
Book Chapter
The Gradual Erosion of the Social Security Function of Customary Land Tenure Arrangements in Lineage-Based SocietiesPart of Book Insurance Against Poverty
Book Chapter
Measuring Entrepreneurship in Developing CountriesPart of Book Entrepreneurship and Economic Development
Blog
WIDER Annual Lecture 18: Managing Structural Transformation
18 December 2014 Roger Williamson At the UN headquarters in New York on 18 November 2014, Peter Timmer, emeritus professor from Harvard, showed how...
Displaying 32 of 183 results