The six papers in this Special Issue to provide insights into advances in conceptualizing and measuring vulnerability, in particularly household vulnerability to poverty and country and regional vulnerability to external shocks. All of the papers...
Part of Journal Special Issue Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries
This paper considers the impact of sea level rise and storm surge on the Red River delta region of Vietnam an area already known to be highly vulnerable to coastal risks. By combining a range of sea level rise scenarios for 2050 with the simulated...
We 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...
Traditional poverty measures neglect several important dimensions of household welfare. In this paper we construct a measure of ‘vulnerability’ which allows us to quantify the welfare loss associated with poverty as well as the loss associated with...
Part of Journal Special Issue Vulnerability in Development
Part of Book Vulnerability in Developing Countries
Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics
Much of UNU-WIDER’s research in the last few years was initiated under the 2010-13 work programme on the triple crisis of finance, food, and climate...
Part of Book Advancing Development
Part of Book Insurance Against Poverty
Part of Book From Capital Surges to Drought
Part of Book From Capital Surges to Drought
High income risk is part of life in developing countries. Climatic risks, economic fluctuations, but also a large number of individual-specific shocks make these households vulnerable to serious hardship. For example, details are given on the various...
Poor households with little or no wealth are particularly vulnerable to risks that reduce incomes and increase expenditures. This book addresses many of the risk-coping strategies for the rural poor, with a focus on micro level and household actions...
The paper studies the trend towards the use of securities as a vehicle to transfer capital to developing economies, and how it is linked to the increasing use of derivatives transactions in developing countries. It also provides a descriptive...
This paper explores the complementary use of two instruments to manage capital-account volatility in developing countries: capital-account regulations and counter-cyclical prudential regulation of domestic financial intermediaries. Capital-account...
We 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...
A small but growing literature has been concerned about the economic (and environmental) vulnerability on the level of countries. Less attention is paid to the economic vulnerability of different regions within countries. By focusing on the...
In poor societies, asset accumulation serves as insurance. It also opens the door to wider inequality. Many societies prohibit certain types of accumulation, such as land sales or indenture contracts. This paper investigates the theoretical...
The standard method of testing for efficient risk-sharing in village economies does not allow one to identify vulnerable households, only to make statements about the average risk in the village, or of sub-groups identifiable on the basis of...
We employ a micro-founded and stock-and-flow-consistent model to study the impact of a higher leverage ratio on the South African economy. The model provides a rich representation of institutional balance sheets. The relationship between bank capital...
Use of migration tax as an instrument for financing development expenditure in poorer countries has received renewed attention recently and is evolving as an important subject of research in development economics. This paper discusses a related issue...
This paper argues that, if implemented in its current form, the new Basel Capital Accord will adversely effect developing sovereigns, corporates and banks wishing to borrow in international markets. This impact will result from the major banks’...
Join the network
