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From The Editor's Desk (December 2012)![Placeholder](https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/expert_45x45/public/tony_addison_87363af4b3de300e5211e81b8d521d70.png?itok=-MPVkzbW)
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...
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...
15 January 2013Martin Rama from The World bank discusses the process behind the World Development Report 2013 on jobs, which he directed.He emphasises...
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...
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 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...
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...
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
Part of Journal Special Issue Legal Empowerment and Group-Based Inequality
Part of Journal Special Issue What sustains informality
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...
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...
From 2000-2014, like many other sub-Saharan African countries, Kenya experienced high growth, at an average of 4.37 percent. Unfortunately, the 2007...
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...
What type of business destroys proportionately more jobs during times of economic recessions and hires more in booms? This simple question motivates...
Growth 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...
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...
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...
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...
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid and Employment
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid and Employment
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid and Employment
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid and Employment
This 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...
South Africa ranks as the world’s most unequal country by income. This is largely due to high wage inequality, given that wages are the main income...
There 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...
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...
Part of Book Wider Perspectives on Global Development
Kaushik Basu is known for the expert way in which he brings the tools of economic and philosophical analysis to bear on current development issues. In recent years his interests have included questions concerned with international labour standards...
This volume aims at remedying the relative dearth of studies addressing issues of women and development in Arab countries. One major concern of its authors is to improve the statistical information available by including the often omitted aspect of...
Part of Book Globalization, Marginalization and Development
This volume aims at remedying the relative dearth of studies addressing issues of women and development in Arab countries. One major concern of its authors is to improve the statistical information available by including the often omitted aspect of...
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...
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...
Part of Journal Special Issue Welfare and distributive effects of social assistance in the Global South
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...
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 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...
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...
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...
Part of Journal Special Issue Globalization-Poverty Channels and Case Studies from Sub-Saharan Africa
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...
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...
Part of Book Falling Inequality in Latin America
Part of Book Vulnerability in Developing Countries
Part of Book The Poor under Globalization in Asia, Latin America, and Africa
Part of Book The Poor under Globalization in Asia, Latin America, and Africa
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...
This paper attempts to contribute to the understanding of the impacts of secure rural agricultural land rights on labour structural transformation from agriculture to non-agriculture as well as on urbanization, with a specific focus on Thailand...
This paper uses five life histories from three locations in Zimbabwe—one peri-urban, one urban and one rural—to provide a window on current processes of impoverishment and adverse coping. Each case and location highlight key aspects of Zimbabwe’s...
We 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...
Part of Book Democratic Reform and the Position of Women in Transitional Economies
Part of Book Transnational Corporations and the Global Economy
Part of Book The Mortality Crisis in Transitional Economies
Part of Book Information Technology, Productivity, and Economic Growth
Part of Book Democratic Reform and the Position of Women in Transitional Economies
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...
27 August 2014 Roger Williamson The themes of the new UNU-WIDER work programme—transformation, inclusion, and sustainability—were the focus of the...
Large-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...
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...
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...
There 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...
Economic 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...