Join the network
Book Chapter
Regional Cooperation and PeacePart of Book The New Regionalism and the Future of Security and Development
267 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
Filter by...
Reset all
Blog
Youth Employment: A Key Issue
Economist Imed Drine recently left UNU-WIDER and headed with his family for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to take up a new position as a senior economist with...
Working Paper
The Brazilian regional development funds and economic growthThe regional development policy in Brazil materializes mainly in the regional development funds for the north-east (FNE), the north (FNO), and the centre-west (FCO), in which more than EUR36 billion was invested between 2004 and 2010. This paper...
Working Paper
Why Do Poverty Rates Differ From Region to Region?This paper proposes a semi-parametric method for poverty decomposition, which combines the data-generating procedure of Shorrocks and Wan (2004) with the Shapley value framework of Shorrocks (1999). Compared with the popular method of Datt and...
Working Paper
Beyond the Notion of Security CommunityAfrican regional organizations’ increasing activity in security policy is usually approached through the concept of a ‘security community’, which can only partially clarify their difficult situation. A multilevel governance model is suggested as a...
Working Paper
Market Size, Linkages, and ProductivityOne account of spatial concentration focuses on productivity advantages arising from market size. We investigate this for 40 regions of Japan. Our results identify important effects of a region’s own size, as well as cost linkages between producers...
Working Paper
Income Distribution and Labour Movement in China After WTO MembershipUsing a CGE model, PRCGEM, with an updated 2002 I/O table, this paper explores how earnings will be affected in each of 40 separate industries across 31 regions (or 8 regional blocks) of China for the period 2002–07. Labour movement between regions...
Working Paper
Globalization and Regional Income InequalityChina’s recent accession to the WTO is expected to accelerate its integration into the world economy, which aggravates concerns over the impact of globalization on the already rising inter-regional income inequality in China. This paper discusses...
Working Paper
The Urban-Rural Income Gap and Inequality in ChinaUsing new household survey data for 1995 and 2002, we investigate the size of China’s urban-rural income gap, the gap’s contribution to overall inequality in China, and the factors underlying the gap. Our analysis improves on past estimates by using...
Working Paper
Estimating Income Inequality in China Using Grouped Data and the Generalized Beta DistributionThere are two main types of data sources of income distributions in China: household survey data and grouped data. Household survey data are typically available for isolated years and individual provinces. In comparison, aggregate or grouped data are...
Working Paper
Forces Shaping China's Interprovincial InequalityThis paper explores the forces that shaped China’s interprovincial inequality in the last five decades of communist rule. In so far as the change in interprovincial inequality is the result of differential growth in the provincial GDP per capita and...
Working Paper
Income Risk and Welfare Status of Rural Households in NigeriaThis paper examines the impact of income risk on the level of well-being of rural households in Nigeria. While income risk is defined as the risks associated with variability in income well-being is defined in terms of the level of utility reached by...
Working Paper
Quo Vadis? Inequality and Poverty Dynamics across Russian RegionsThis paper analyses regional data on inequality and poverty in Russia during 1994-2000 using published series from the regionally representative Household Budget Survey. The paper finds that the share of inequality in Russia coming from the between...
Working Paper
Globalization and Regional Income InequalityChina’s recent accession to the WTO is expected to accelerate its integration into the world economy, which aggravates concerns over the impact of globalization on the already rising inter-region income inequality in China. This paper discusses China...
Working Paper
Foundations of Minority CommunitiesThis paper discusses the development of Korean communities in Japan from their origins in the late nineteenth century through their stabilization following the Second World War. Approaching the developing communities from a spatial perspective, the...
Working Paper
Regional Poverty and Income Inequality in Central and Eastern EuropeThis paper reports levels of income inequality and poverty in four Central and Eastern European countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Russia. Unlike many previous researchers who examine transition economies, we aggregate the detailed...
Working Paper
International Trade, Location and Wage Inequality in ChinaModels of economic geography predict that transportation costs directly affect demand for goods and the supply of intermediate inputs. One of the reasons that international trade is concentrated in the coastal provinces of China is that they have...
Working Paper
Economic Polarization Through TradeThe 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
How Responsive is Poverty to Growth? A Regional Analysis of Poverty, Inequality, and Growth in Indonesia, 1984-99This paper uses six nationally representative household consumption surveys to develop successive poverty profiles for Indonesia over a fifteen-year period of sustained high growth followed by rapid contraction. Adopting a ‘cost-of-basic-needs’...
Working Paper
Opening the Convergence Black BoxIn this paper we address the issues involved with the use of microeconomic data, that is, household surveys, to compare the patterns of income growth among different regions instead of the commonly used aggregate data. In particular, we investigate...
Working Paper
Regional Output Differences in International PerspectiveAccurate regional estimates of output are desired as an indicator of level of development and as a variable used to explain internal migration, demand patterns, fertility and other aspects of behaviour. This chapter explores one often neglected...
Working Paper
Are Neighbours Equal? Estimating Local Inequality in Three Developing CountriesBased on a statistical procedure that combines household survey data with population census data, this paper presents estimates of inequality for three developing countries at a level of disaggregation far below that allowed by household surveys...
Working Paper
Decomposing Spatial Differences in Poverty in IndiaOver the last decade, India has been one of the fastest growing economies, and has experienced considerable decline in overall income poverty. However, in a vast country like India, poverty levels vary significantly across the different states. In...
Working Paper
Divergent Means and Convergent Inequality of Incomes among the Provinces and Cities of Urban ChinaTwo precisely comparable national household surveys relating to 1988 and 1995 are used to analyse changes in the inequality of income in urban China. Over those seven years province mean income per capita grew rapidly but diverged across provinces...
Working Paper
Income Inequality in Rural ChinaA considerable literature exists on the measurement of income inequality in China and its increasing trend. Much less is known, however, about the driving forces of this trend and their quantitative contributions. Conventional decompositions, by...
Working Paper
Fifty Years of Regional Inequality in ChinaThis paper constructs and analyses a long-run time-series for regional inequality in China from the Communist Revolution to the present. There have been three peaks of inequality in the last fifty years, coinciding with the Great Famine of the late...
Working Paper
Industrial Location and Spatial InequalityWe argue that spatial inequality of industry location is a primary cause of spatial income inequality in developing nations. We focus on understanding the process of spatial industrial variation—identifying the spatial factors that have cost...
Working Paper
Growth and Recovery in a Time of DefaultInternational narratives on Argentina’s recovery from the crisis of 2001-02 tend to emphasize the role of rising commodity prices and growing demand from China. Argentina is said to have been ‘lucky’, saved by global demand for its agricultural...
Working Paper
An Inquiry into Cities and Their Role in Subnational Economic Growth in South AfricaSouth Africa is characterized by significant inequality in spatial economic activity. Whether future growth and development on a subnational level in South Africa will be such as to reduce this inequality may depend on the economic growth and...
Working Paper
Crime, Isolation, and Law EnforcementThis paper investigates the relationship between criminal activity and geographical isolation. Using data from Madagascar, we show that, after we control for population composition and risk factors, crime increases with distance from urban centers...
Working Paper
Urban-Rural Inequality in Living Standards in AfricaIn this paper we examine the relative importance of rural versus urban areas in terms of monetary poverty and seven other related living standards indicators. We present the levels of urban-rural differences for several African countries for which we...
Working Paper
National Taxation, Fiscal Federalism and Global TaxationThis paper considers lessons from the practice of fiscal federalism for guidance on new approaches to development finance. Despite the fact that inter-regional redistribution in a federation relies on a central government with strong fiscal powers...
Working Paper
Regional or National Poverty Lines?Absolute poverty lines are often derived from the cost of obtaining sufficient calories. Where staples vary across regions, such poverty lines may differ depending on whether they are set using national or regional food baskets. Regional poverty...
Working Paper
Spatial Decomposition of InequalityThis paper reviews the theory and application of decomposition techniques in the context of spatial inequality. It establishes some new theoretical results with potentially wide applicability, and examines empirical evidence drawn from a large number...
Working Paper
Economic geography determinants of spatial wage disparities in South AfricaIn this paper, we use the new economic geography (NEG) framework to estimate the extent to which spatial wage disparities in the South African manufacturing sector are an outcome of economic forces such as market access. To test the relationship, we...
Journal Special Issue
Spatial Issues in AfricaMany 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...
Journal Special Issue
Spatial Inequality and Development in AsiaMany 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...
Journal Special Issue
Spatial Inequality and DevelopmentMany 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...
Research Brief
The effect of clustering in TunisiaThe clustering of industries in specific areas has improved industrial productivity in a number of countries. Since the mid-1990s in Tunisia, concerted policies have been introduced which focus on improving the efficiency of the labour force, and...
Journal Special Issue
Symposium on Spatial Inequality in Latin AmericaMany 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...
Journal Special Issue
Inequality and Poverty in ChinaGetting an accurate picture of poverty and inequality trends and patterns in the world’s most populous country is central to understanding changes in global inequality and poverty – these alter significantly when China is included or excluded. China...
Journal Special Issue
African Development in an Urban WorldIn 2007 the number of urban inhabitants will surpass rural dwellers as a percentage of the total world population. By 2030 the proportion of people living in cities globally is expected to reach 61%, with almost 80% of urban dwellers living in less...
Journal Special Issue
South-South and North-South Trade AgreementsIn this special issue, five articles address some of the challenges associated with integrating an existing S-S regional agreement with a new template that results from block negotiations with a northern partner. The compatibility issues this raises...
Working Paper
Social Transfers and GrowthThe effects of social transfers on growth are still unclear. The limitations of aggregated data at sub-national levels have confined the analysis to the use of simulation models and household surveys. As an alternative, this paper contributes to the...
Policy Brief
Rising Spatial Disparities and DevelopmentThe UNU-WIDER project on 'Spatial Disparities in Human Development' has collected and analyzed evidence on the extent of spatial inequalities within developing countries. The studies find that spatial inequalities are high, with disparities between...
Working Paper
The Practice of Industrial Policy – Lessons for AfricaThis paper draws on both successful and failing cases of industrialization in China to analyse the role of local governments in fostering the growth of light manufacturing. The broad spectrum of support types and the intimate knowledge of enterprise...
Working Paper
The Centre Cannot HoldOur hypothesis is that Nigeria is going through a process of economic polarization. An analysis of this type is new for Nigeria; the limited availability of comparable data has hindered an investigation that requires data series not too close in time...
Working Paper
Utility-Consistent Poverty in Madagascar, 2001-10We use Arndt and Simler’s (2010) utility-consistent approach to calculating poverty lines to analyse poverty in Madagascar in 2001, 2005 and 2010. Because two major political crises occurred between the survey periods, the snapshots of national...
Working Paper
Utility-Consistent Poverty in Ethiopia, 2000–11We use Arndt and Simler’s utility-consistent approach to calculating poverty lines to analyse poverty in Ethiopia in 2000, 2005, and 2011. Poverty reduction was steady but uneven, with gains greatest in urban areas in the first half of the decade...
Working Paper
Disentangling the Pattern of Geographic Concentration in Tunisian Manufacturing IndustriesIn this paper, we examine the pattern of spatial concentration of manufacturing industries observed in Tunisia and explore the factors driving firms’ choices of location at the provincial level. We consider specialization and competition indicators...
Working Paper
The Rise of a Middle Class in East and Southern AfricaWe examine the implications of the rise of a middle class in East and Southern Africa for food consumption patterns and the food system. A unique classification of food items shows that highly processed food has one-third of the purchased food market...
Working Paper
Regulatory Reform for Closing Africa’s Competitiveness GapOver the past decade, Africa has been experiencing an economic resurgence. Yet, the continent is facing several difficult challenges and many economies of the region continue to be among the least competitive in the world. Africa’s competitiveness is...
Working Paper
Spatial Horizontal Inequality and the Maoist Insurgency in NepalThe Maoist insurgency in Nepal is one of the highest intensity internal conflicts in recent times. Investigation into the causes of the conflict would suggest that grievance rather than greed is the main motivating force. The concept of horizontal or...
Working Paper
Longevity in Russia's RegionsThis paper examines the impact of changes in poverty and public health spending on inter-temporal variations in longevity using a unique regional-level dataset that covers 77 regions of Russia over the period 1994-2000. The dynamic panel data model...
Working Paper
Spatial Inequality and Development in Central AsiaThis paper focuses on inequality in living standards across oblasts and regions within Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Regional inequality is an important area of research and policy development. Inequality...
Working Paper
Changes in Spatial Income Inequality in the PhilippinesThe purpose of this paper is to establish some basic facts about income inequality in the Philippines, with a special focus on the importance of spatial income inequality. Despite major fluctuations in macroeconomic performances, income inequality...
Working Paper
Assessing Poverty and Inequality at a Detailed Regional LevelDuring the past three years NATSEM has developed pathbreaking spatial microsimulation techniques, involving the creation of synthetic data about the socioeconomic characteristics of households at a detailed regional level. The data are potentially...
Book Chapter
Regional Integration in AfricaFrom the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
Book Chapter
Regulatory Reform for Closing Africa's Competitiveness GapFrom the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
Blog
From The Editor's Desk (October 2012)
Tony Addison UNU-WIDER is having a very active and successful autumn. Our climate change and development policy conference at the end of September...
Blog
From the Editor's Desk (January 2012)
Tony Addison January saw the snow arrive in Helsinki. As I look out across the harbour, the scene is one of various shades of white and grey. The...
Blog
The View from Buenos Aires
Tony Addison A visit to Buenos Aires in September provided a good vantage point to look at the euro zone’s deepening crisis. Angle readers will recall...
Working Paper
Regionalization in Southern AfricaThis state of the art paper reviews literature published up to the end of 1994 on economic, security and environmental regionalization in southern Africa. In the field of economic regionalization a distinction is made between three main integration...
Working Paper
Habitat II and the Urban EconomyThe strategic conferences organized by the UN during the past 25 years have focused on assisting and mobilizing governments and other relevant actors of international life by enhancing collective thinking and action in those areas which may...
Working Paper
Regional Integration in AfricaPolitical motives, geography, and the uneven distribution of gains trumped the traditional efficiency gains across Africa’s Regional Economic Communities (RECs). The small, sparsely populated, fragmented, and often isolated economies across Africa...
Policy Brief
The Global Economic Crisis After One YearOne year into the global economic crisis, it has become clear that the paradigm for international development has changed irrevocably. With leadership, moral authority and the capacity of the West in international development diminishing, developing...
Policy Brief
Policy Responses to the Global Economic Crisis in AfricaAfrica is the developing region most at risk from the global economic crisis. Its recent strong growth has been interrupted. Already home to the largest number of low-income countries in the world, the region is now likely to experience higher...
Policy Brief
Achieving Development SuccessWhat can the less well-off developing countries learn from the ’successes’ of other developing countries? This Policy Brief highlights successful development strategies and lessons from in-depth case studies of select countries from the developing...
Working Paper
Conflict and Peace-building in AfricaContemporary Africa reveals a range of causes, consequences and responses to conflicts which are increasingly interrelated as well as regional in character, as around the Great Lakes/Horn. Their economic and non-state features are undeniable, leading...
Journal Article
Agglomeration, Growth and Regional EquityTraditional development models focus on the sector rather than location of growth. Advocates of agriculture-led strategies emphasise agriculture's strong growth linkages and potential to raise rural incomes. The new economic geography literature...
Working Paper
Export Diversity and Regional GrowthThis paper provides empirical evidence on the relationship between exports, and in particular export diversity, and regional growth in a developing country context. Using export data for 19 sectors from 354 subnational (magisterial) districts of...
Working Paper
Financial Development, Growth, and Regional Disparity in Post-Reform ChinaDeepening financial development and rapid economic growth in China have been accompanied by widening income disparity between the coastal and inland regions. In this paper, by employing panel dataset for 29 Chinese provinces over the period of 1990...
Working Paper
Spatial Convergence in China: 1952-99The purpose of this paper is to examine the convergence process in China by taking into account the spatial interaction between factors. The paper shows that there has been a dramatic increase in the spatial dependence of China’s per capita GDP in...
Working Paper
Coordinating Aid for Regional Cooperation ProjectsFor the Central Asian countries the dissolution of the Soviet Union led to economic disintegration as old coordination mechanisms disappeared and new national borders appeared. This paper analyses why it has been difficult to coordinate aid for...
Working Paper
Adverse Geography and Differences in Welfare in PeruIn Peru, a country with an astonishing variety of different ecological areas, with 84 different climate zones and landscapes, with rainforests, high mountain ranges and dry deserts, the geographical context may not be all that matters, but it could...
Working Paper
A Decomposition Analysis of Regional Poverty in RussiaThis paper applies a new decomposition technique to the study of variations in poverty across the regions of Russia. The procedure, which is based on the Shapley value in cooperative game theory, allows the deviation in regional poverty levels from...
Working Paper
Producing an Improved Geographic Profile of PovertyThis paper implements a methodology for estimating poverty in Ecuador, Madagascar and South Africa, at levels of disaggregation that to date have not generally been available. The methodology is based on a statistical procedure to combine household...
Blog
Spatial Inequality and Development
by Anthony L. Venables Economic activity is distributed extremely unevenly across space. At the international level there are rich countries and poor...
Working Paper
Evolving City SystemsThis paper reviews the literature on the forces driving urbanization in developing countries. It presents a model outlining how globalization can lead to the evolution of an urban structure which may approximate Zipf’s law. Policy implications are...
Journal Article
Special section of Applied EnergyPart of Journal Special Issue Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa
Working Paper
The expansion of regional supermarket chainsOver the past two decades, southern African countries have experienced rapid growth in the number and spread of supermarkets. Several factors have been attributed to this growth, including increasing urbanization, increased per capita income, the...
Blog
Regional Industrialization and Integration in Southern Africa - Reporting from TIPS Annual Forum
The white-painted cluster of traditional style buildings might suggest that this was a farm on the South African veldt. Not so however—it was Trade...
Blog
Celebrating 30 years of research for development
The celebration of the 30th Anniversary of UNU-WIDER presented the ideal opportunity to look back, take stock, and plan ahead. Where else can a group...
Working Paper
Lessons from the Transition EconomiesWhy many transition economies succeeded by pursuing policies that are so different from the radical economic liberalization (shock therapy) that is normally credited for the economic success of central European countries? First, optimal policies are...
Working Paper
National policies and regional integration in the South African Development CommunityThis paper focuses on the relationship between regional integration in the Southern African Development Community and national policies. Review of trade, industrial, agricultural, labour, and related policy areas, indicates that national policies can...
Research Brief
International Economic Integration and Growth in Latin AmericaIntegration of Latin America into the international economy over the past quarter century has led to faster export growth, but not to faster GDP or productivity growth Contrary to mainstream analysis, under the current market reforms countries have...
Journal Article
Income, Mortality, and Literacy Distribution Dynamics Across States in MexicoPart of Journal Special Issue Symposium on Spatial Inequality in Latin America
Journal Article
Symposium on Spatial Inequality in Latin AmericaPart of Journal Special Issue Symposium on Spatial Inequality in Latin America
Book
Spatial Disparities in Human DevelopmentWhat 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...
Journal Article
Spatial Decomposition of InequalityPart of Journal Special Issue A Collection of UNU-WIDER articles in Chinese
Book Chapter
To Be or Not To Be?Part of Book National Perspectives on the New Regionalism in the South
Book Chapter
Divergent Means and Convergent Inequality of Incomes among the Provinces and Cities of Urban ChinaPart of Book Spatial Disparities in Human Development
Displaying 96 of 267 results