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From The Editor's Desk (December 2012)
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...
90 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Blog
Jobs Drive Development: An interview with Martin Rama
15 January 2013Martin Rama from The World bank discusses the process behind the World Development Report 2013 on jobs, which he directed.He emphasises...
Working Paper
The African Lions
– Kenya country case study
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...
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
Market Reforms and Women Workers in Vietnam
– A Case Study of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City
Journal Article
Structural Transformation, Biased Technological Change and Employment in VietnamEmployment 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...
Working Paper
Changing Patterns of Employment and Unemployment in Africa
– A Comparative Perspective on Four Sub-Saharan Countries
Working Paper
Economic Reforms, Women's Employment, and Social Policies
– Case Studies of China, Viet Nam, Egypt, and Cuba
Journal Article
How Fast Do Banks Adjust?
– A DyA Dynamic Model of Labor-Use with an Application to Swedish Banks
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...
Working Paper
Structural Transformation, Biased Technological Change, and Employment in VietnamEmployment 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...
Book Chapter
Vulnerability, Poverty and Coping in ZimbabwePart of Book Vulnerability in Developing Countries
Working Paper
Gender differences in child investment behaviour among agricultural households
– Evidence from the Lesotho Child Grants Programme
We examine the impacts of an unconditional cash transfer in Lesotho using an experimental impact evaluation design. We find that the cash transfer led to different outcomes for girls and boys, overall favouring secondary school-aged girls. Girls in...
Research Brief
Aid, Poverty, and the Working PoorThere are over 900 million working people who earn less than US$2 a day, while 200 million people are unemployed. Unemployment is a bigger problem in high-income countries, in low-income countries unemployment is rarer as work is essential for...
Blog
Out of the Poverty Trap Through Higher Aspirations?
Why does a mother from a poor African village not send her daughter to school, but instead marries her off to an old man as a second or third wife...
Blog
Job Creation and the Business Cycle in Brazil
What type of business destroys proportionately more jobs during times of economic recessions and hires more in booms? This simple question motivates...
Working Paper
Aid, Employment, and Poverty Reduction in AfricaGrowth and poverty reduction in Africa are weakly linked. This paper argues that the reason is that Africa has failed to create enough good jobs. Structural transformation―the relative growth of employment in high productivity sectors―has not...
Blog
Development Finance: The Role for Aid in Africa
Aid’s future, its history, and its impact were the topics of a policy workshop held by UNU-WIDER in co-operation with the Embassy of Denmark in Dar es...
Working Paper
Using legal empowerment for labour rights in IndiaThis paper brings labour back into the literature on legal empowerment against poverty. Employing a historical lens, I outline three waves of legal movements. Each wave is distinguished by its timing, the state-level target, and the actors involved...
Blog
Economic Lessons from Recent Research for Achieving SDG8
This article is part of UNU’s “17 Days, 17 Goals” series, featuring research and commentary in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development...
Blog
From the Editor's Desk (September-October 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...
Journal Article
Aid, Growth, and Employment in AfricaPart of Journal Special Issue Aid and Employment
Journal Article
Aid, Employment, and Poverty Reduction in AfricaPart of Journal Special Issue Aid and Employment
Journal Article
Is Small Beautiful? Small Enterprise, Aid, and Employment in AfricaPart of Journal Special Issue Aid and Employment
Journal Article
Priorities for Boosting Employment in Sub-Saharan Africa
– Evidence for Mozambique
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid and Employment
Book Chapter
Asia's Labour-Driven Growth, Flying Geese Style
– Types of Trade, FDI, and Institutions Matter for the Poor
Part of Book The Poor under Globalization in Asia, Latin America, and Africa
Book
Africa's Lions
– Growth Traps and Opportunities for Six African Economies
Examining the economic forces that will shape Africa’s future Africa’s Lions examines the economic growth experiences of six fast-growing and/or economically dominant African countries. Expert African researchers offer unique perspectives into the...
Book Chapter
Kenya
– Economic growth, labor market dynamics, and prospects for a demographic dividend
Part of Book Africa's Lions
Journal Article
The Effect of the Liberalization of Investment Policies on Employment and Investment of Multinational Corporations in AfricaPart of Journal Special Issue Globalization-Poverty Channels and Case Studies from Sub-Saharan Africa
Research Brief
Structural Change – Critical for Poverty Reduction in AfricaEconomic growth has had a negative effect on unemployment and poverty reduction in Africa. The transition from low- to middle income requires within sector increases in productivity and a shift of labour resources from low productivity agriculture to...
Book Chapter
Economic Polarization Through Trade
– Trade Liberalization and Regional Growth in Mexico
Part of Book Spatial Inequality and Development
Working Paper
Informed job entry
– Does labour market information speed job-taking in Mozambique?
High youth unemployment rates and long school-to-work transition times pose a threat to low-income countries’ sustainable growth prospects. Using a randomized control trial experiment conducted in Mozambique, we find strong evidence that providing...
Working Paper
The gendered effects of climate shocks on labour and welfare in ZambiaThis paper exploits several waves of two major nationwide representative surveys to document the impacts of climate shocks on individuals and households in Zambia. We merge these datasets with historical precipitation and temperature data at the...
Blog
Counting (on) the labour market to secure a just transitionThe climate stabilization imperative emerging from the Paris Agreement is, in so many ways, absolutely critical to securing the planet’s future for...
Working Paper
Winners and losers in industrial policy 2.0Large-scale business subsidies tied to national industrial development promotion programmes are notoriously difficult to study and are often inseparable from the political economy of large government programmes. We use the Tunisian national firm...
Policy Brief
Transition to labour market by university students
– Key findings from an extensive survey
This brief summarizes the findings and implications of a survey of the school-to-work transition by Mozambican university students. No research of this kind had previously been conducted. Over the course of a year and a half, university graduates...
Journal Article
Precarization or protection?
– The role of trade and labour policies on informality
Part of Journal Special Issue What sustains informality
Blog
Supply or demand? Exploring the mechanisms behind the rise of female labour force participation in MexicoAt 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...
Blog
African Lions - Tapping the potential of Kenya's economic growth
From 2000-2014, like many other sub-Saharan African countries, Kenya experienced high growth, at an average of 4.37 percent. Unfortunately, the 2007...
Working Paper
Informal freelancers in the time of COVID-19
– Insights from a digital matching platform in Mozambique
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...
Working Paper
Precarization or protection? The impact of trade and labour policies on informalitySeveral 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...
Working Paper
Who demands labour (de)regulation in the developing world?
– Insider–outsider theory revisited
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...
Working Paper
Southern Engines of Global Growth
– Very Long Cycles or Short Spurts?
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...
Journal Article
Foreign Capital, Skill Formation, and Migration of Skilled WorkersWe study the interaction between foreign capital inflow and international migration of skilled labor when a small open economy is subject to exogenous shocks. The presence of a skill formation sector is central to our analysis, such that import...
Working Paper
Comparative Advantage Patterns and Domestic Determinants in Emerging Countries
– An Analysis with a Focus on Technology
During the last two decades a number of emerging economies have become deeply engaged in technology-intensive production. This has been reflected in their international trade specialization shifting from labour-intensive goods towards capital...
Working Paper
Job flows, worker flows, and churning in South AfricaIn 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...
Working Paper
Employment and development in AsiaHow 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’...
Working Paper
Optimality and Overuse of Labour in Estonian Manufacturing EnterprisesFor 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...
Journal Article
Cash Transfers and Gender Differentials in Child Schooling and Labor
– Evidence from the Lesotho Child Grants Programme
Part of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
Working Paper
Asia's Labour-Driven Economic Development, Flying-Geese Style
– An Unprecedented Opportunity for the Poor to Rise?
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...
Working Paper
Economic Polarization Through Trade
– Trade Liberalization and Regional Growth in Mexico
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...
Working Paper
Changes in Labour Market Conditions and Policies
– Their Impact on Wage Inequality During the Last Decade
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...
Working Paper
Affirmative action policies and the evolution of post-apartheid South Africa’s racial wage gapRacial 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...
Working Paper
Labour Standards in Exports and Developing CountriesThis 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...
Working Paper
Identifying monetary policy rules in South Africa with inflation expectations and unemploymentThis 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...
Book Chapter
Informality, Growth and Development in AfricaFrom the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
Journal Article
Using Legal Empowerment for Labour Rights in IndiaPart of Journal Special Issue Legal Empowerment and Group-Based Inequality
Working Paper
Effect of the Liberalization of Investment Policies on Employment and Investment of Multinational Corporations in AfricaThere has been a remarkable shift in the attitudes towards globalization. Specifically, the discussion among academics and policymakers has shifted from whether globalization should be encouraged to how countries can position themselves to benefit...
Working Paper
Post-Apartheid South Africa
– Poverty and Distribution Trends in an Era of Globalization
South Africa’s transition to democracy in 1994 created new possibilities for economic policy. Economic liberalization brought sustained, if unspectacular, growth that reversed the long decline in per capita incomes, but left its scars in much job...
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