At the global level, gender gaps in labour force participation have narrowed and over half a billion women have joined the workforce in the last 30...
From 2000-2014, like many other sub-Saharan African countries, Kenya experienced high growth, at an average of 4.37 percent. Unfortunately, the 2007...
Despite the severe negative economic shock associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence from many contexts points to a surge in sales on online platforms, as well as shifts in the composition of demand. This paper investigates how the pandemic has...
Several episodes of market-oriented reforms in developing countries have been accompanied by a significant rise in work outside of the formal economy. This paper investigates whether the impact of increased exposure to trade on formal employment is...
15 January 2013Martin Rama from The World bank discusses the process behind the World Development Report 2013 on jobs, which he directed.He emphasises...
In this paper, worker and job flows are estimated using the IRP5 data from the South African Revenue Services. The data used in this paper is from the 2011–14 tax years and contains information on more than 12 million individuals and nearly 300,000...
For transition economies labour market flexibility is necessary for successful restructuring and reallocation of labour force and for coping with the requirements of the European Monetary Union. In this paper we apply a novel approach to the issue of...
The paper analyses the impact trade liberalization and economic integration have had on regional growth and regional disparities in Mexico over the last two decades. It is highlighted that the passage from an import substitution system to membership...
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...
Part of Journal Special Issue Legal Empowerment and Group-Based Inequality
This article views the four economies of the South in a long run historical perspective of 1500-2000. It contrasts the history and the initial endowments of the two Northern hemisphere economies China and India which are land scarce and labour...
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’...
This paper investigates the impact labour regulation, as defined by labour standards, have on the international trade regime. After providing a description of the debate's landscape, the paper focuses on the questions: Could the adoption of a...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
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...
The 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...
Employment in Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia has grown more slowly than GDP over the last several decades. This means GDP per capita is rising. Vietnamese policymakers, however, are concerned that ongoing structural transformation is creating too few...
This paper investigates whether a Taylor rule accurately describes the South African Reserve Bank’s reaction function in setting interest rates using quarterly data, covering the period since inflation targeting was formally adopted in 2000. The...
Contrary to the predictions of the insider–outsider model, we show that the large majority of outsiders in developing countries support, rather than oppose, protective labour regulations. This evidence holds across countries in different regions...
The notion of ‘shared growth’ was introduced by the World Bank in recognition of East Asia’s rapid growth accompanied by poverty reduction. It emphasizes the criticality of pro-poor policies and institutional setups in the fast-developing East Asian...
Labour market incomes have been a major contributor to the important fall in inequality in Latin America during the 2000s. Indeed, it was the main contributor in countries where inequality fell more dramatically. A proper understanding of the...
Racial wage inequality and discrimination have pervaded South African society for centuries. Apartheid legislation cemented these disparities by institutionalizing white job reservation and many other unfair practices. While racial wage gaps started...
This paper deals with a dynamic adjustment process in which adjustment of a key variable input (labor) towards its desired level is modeled in a panel data context. The partial adjustment type model is extended to make the adjustment parameter both...
27 August 2014 Roger Williamson The themes of the new UNU-WIDER work programme—transformation, inclusion, and sustainability—were the focus of the...
This article is part of UNU’s “17 Days, 17 Goals” series, featuring research and commentary in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development...
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...
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