UNU-WIDER : UNU-WIDER

Blog

by Luc Christiaensen, Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen August 2012

Luc Christiaensen and Lorraine Telfer-Taivainen If a person suddenly becomes poor, for example, due to an unexpected death or illness in the family...

Working Paper

Out of School and (Probably) in Work

This paper explores the hypothesis that the phenomenon of child labour is explicable in terms of poverty that compels a household to keep its children out of school and put them to work in the cause of the household’s survival. In exploring the link...

Working Paper

Globalization, Poverty, Inequality, and Insecurity

The literature on the economics of happiness in the developed economies finds discrepancies between reported measures of wellbeing and income measures. The ‘Easterlin paradox’, for example, shows that average happiness levels do not increase as...

Working Paper

The Human Development Index Adjusted for Efficient Resource Utilization

The human development index (HDI) developed by the United Nations Development Programme is computed as the average of three equally weighted outcome measures: life expectancy (LI), educational attainment (EI) and income (WI). However, this...

Working Paper

Measuring the Quality of Life Across Countries

This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive analysis of interrelationships among the determinants of the quality of life (QOL). We show that various measures of well-being are highly sensitive to domains of QOL that are considered in the...

Working Paper

A Framework for Incorporating Environmental Indicators to the Measurement of Human Well-Being

This study, relying on an economic-theoretical approach to index numbers, proposes a framework for incorporating environmental indicators to the measurement of human well-being. Furthermore this study also proposes an improvement index which...

Working Paper

Measuring Inequality Without the Pigou-Dalton Condition

Typical welfare and inequality measures are required to be Lorenz consistent which guarantees that inequality decreases and welfare increases as a result of a progressive transfer. We explore the implications for welfare and inequality measurement of...

Working Paper

OECD Domestic Support and Developing Countries

An AGE model with detailed farm supply and substitution relationships is used to analyze impacts of OECD domestic support reform on developing economy welfare. Stylized simulations indicate reforms best suited for reducing trade distortions with...

Working Paper

Looking Beyond Averages in the Trade and Poverty Debate

There has been much debate about how much poor people in developing countries gain from trade openness, as one aspect of ‘globalization’. The paper views the issue through both ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ empirical lenses. The macro lens uses cross-country...

Working Paper

Assessing Well-being Using Hierarchical Needs

Determining whether well-being has improved is an important multidisciplinary task. It is important therefore to develop a multidimensional measure of well-being that reflects a wide spectrum of human needs. A new approach is presented in this paper...

Working Paper

On the Distributional Implications of Social Protection Reforms in Latin America

The paper tracks recent changes in the components of social protection in Latin America, the reforms to social insurance in the 1990s and the growth of social assistance in the 2000s, and assesses their effects on poverty and inequality and...

Working Paper

Human Well-being

Economic measures of income have ignored large areas of human well-being and are poor measures of well-being in the areas to which they attend. Despite increased recognition of those distortions, ‘GNP per capita continues to be regarded as the...

Journal Special Issue

Inequality and Multidimensional Well-being

Working Paper

Multidimensional first-order dominance comparisons of population wellbeing

In this paper, we convey the concept of first-order dominance (FOD) with particular focus on applications to multidimensional population welfare comparisons. We give an account of the fundamental equivalent definitions of FOD, illustrated with simple...

Welfare economics

Working Paper

Multidimensional Poverty in Nigeria

This study appraises non-monetary multidimensional poverty in Nigeria using the novel first order dominance approach developed by Arndt et al. (2012). It examines five dimensions of deprivation: education, water, sanitation, shelter, and energy-using...

Working Paper

Growth, Poverty and Inequality in Rwanda

This study focuses on growth, poverty and inequality in Rwanda. We take a broad perspective, in two respects. First, we consider a long time period so as to compare the current situation with the pre-war situation, allowing us to assess whether the...

Working Paper

Multidimensional Welfare in Districts of Zambia

In this paper we make welfare comparisons among districts of Zambia using multidimensional well-being indicators observed at the household level using the first order dominance approach developed by Arndt et al. in 2012. This approach allows welfare...

Working Paper

The Impact of Food Price Volatility on Consumer Welfare in Cameroon

The objective of this paper is to analyse the welfare effects of food price volatility on Cameroonian consumers. Using data from the third Cameroonian Household Consumption Surveys, the price elasticities are obtained from a Quadratic Almost Ideal...

Working Paper

Spatial and temporal multidimensional poverty in Nigeria

Nigeria has recorded impressive growth in the last decade, yet the impact of this growth on poverty reduction remains unclear. This paper appraises spatial and temporal non-monetary multidimensional poverty in Nigeria using the first-order dominance...

Policy Brief

Social and Economic Policies to Prevent Complex Humanitarian Emergencies Lessons from Experience

In simple language and with numerous concrete examples, this policy brief analyses the impact - among others - of key ex-ante factors such as acute 'horizontal inequality' between social groups in the distribution of assets, state jobs, social...

Policy Brief

Access to Land and Land Policy Reforms

The objective of this research and policy brief is to analyse different mechanisms of access to land for the rural poor in an era when redistribution through expropriative land reform is largely inconsistent with the forces of the political economy...

Working Paper

Policy Co-ordination and Growth Traps in a Middle-income Country Setting

South Africa has exhibited tepid economic growth over the past twenty years as well as high levels of income inequality characteristic of a middle income country growth trap. This paper compares and contrasts South Africa’s growth trap relative to...

Working Paper

Growth, Poverty, and Inequality

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the growth performance of the Cameroonian economy from independence in 1960 to date, and then to use this as a background for the analysis of poverty, inequality, and non-monetary outcomes. The analysis of...

Working Paper

Monetary Inequality Among Households in Togo

This paper aims at measuring and analysing for the first time inequality in the distribution of expenditures among households in Togo according to the characteristics of household heads. The study is based on the most recent survey (QUIBB 2006) and...

Working Paper

Consumption Bundle Aggregation in Poverty Measurement

Official poverty figures in Uganda are flawed by the fact that the underlying poverty lines are based on a single national food basket that was constructed in the early 1990s. In this paper, we estimate a new set of poverty lines that accounts for...

Working Paper

Multi-dimensional Poverty Analysis for Tanzania

As in much of sub-Saharan Africa, Tanzania has attained rapid economic growth accompanied by only marginal reductions in poverty. Is this mismatch between high economic growth and less significant poverty reduction due to how growth and poverty are...

Working Paper

Indices of Social Development and their Application to Africa

This paper, using a new set of social development indices, explores the measurement of social development across Africa, and how this relates to broader development patterns and measurement. Development practitioners worldwide increasingly recognize...

Policy Brief

Measuring Human Well-being

This Policy Brief is an outcome of the UNU-WIDER research project 'Social Development Indicators'. The overall aim of the project was to provide insights into how human well-being might be better conceptualized and, in particular, measured, by...

Working Paper

Poverty, Vulnerability, and Reference Dependent Utility

In this paper we argue that the recent evidence on individuals’ decision making is of high relevance for the measurement of poverty when switching from a static and certain to a dynamic and uncertain framework. The numerous proposed measures of multi...

Working Paper

Utility-Consistent Poverty in Madagascar, 2001-10

We 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, 2000–11

We 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

Estimating multidimensional childhood poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2007 through 2013

After years of economic decline, conflict, and instability, the Democratic Republic of Congo achieved rapid economic growth in the 2000s along with a reduction in rural consumption poverty. This paper evaluates the extent to which recent growth has...

Working Paper

Does Food Insecurity Impact Subjective Evaluation of Well-being?

Understanding the relationship between food insecurity and subjective evaluation of well-being is critical in designing social welfare policies, especially in developing countries. Surprisingly, literature on the topic is scarce. This study adopted...

Working Paper

The Fall of the Elephant

At the end of the 1980s, Côte d’Ivoire entered a deep macroeconomic crisis that put an end to the often-praised ‘Ivorian miracle’. After the death of the founding father Houphouet-Boigny, unrestrained political competition added to bad economic...

Working Paper

Climate Variability and Household Welfare in Northern Ghana

Climate variability poses a major risk to agricultural incomes in Africa. In Ghana, most of the country’s poor people live in the north and households find it difficult to hold back their productive assets during the lean season. This study...

Working Paper

Demobilization, Land and Household Livelihoods

With the overthrow of the Derg in 1991, some 500,000 ex-soldiers needed to be demobilized and reintegrated back into their communities. Successfully integrating such a large number of ex-soldiers is clearly important to social stability. While...

Journal Article

Can commercial farming promote rural dynamism in sub-Saharan Africa?

The impact of commercial farms on smallholders in developing countries remains highly controversial. This study draws on four periods of investments in commercial farming in Mozambique to frame an empirical analysis of their contemporary economic...

Working Paper

Freedom of Choice

Working Paper

The Transition's Mortality Crisis in East Germany

Several studies have indicated an increase in men's mortality in East Germany between 1989 and 1991 in the wake of the reunification of 1990. For some age-groups, death rates soared by up to thirty per cent. This study investigates the evolution and...

Working Paper

Social and Political Indicators of Human Well-being

A plethora of what are loosely described as social and political indicators of well-being exist. Both the range and country coverage of these indicators has increased appreciably in recent years. In this paper we ask what contribution these...

Book Chapter

Assessing Progress in Welfare Improvements in Zambia

Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Book Chapter

Slow Progress in Growth and Poverty Reduction in Cameroon

Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Book Chapter

The Fall of the Elephant

Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Book Chapter

Utility-Consistent Poverty in Madagascar, 2001-10

Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Blog

From the Editor's Desk (August 2012)

by Tony Addison August 2012

Tony Addison With this issue, Angle returns refreshed from its Nordic summer break. The sun continues to shine on the Baltic, although it is getting...

Blog

From the Editor's Desk (December 2011)

by Tony Addison December 2011

Tony Addison With the end of the year fast approaching, we bring you the last Angle of 2011. Here in Helsinki, the shortest day of the year is nearly...

Working Paper

Zaire after Mobutu

The recent history of Zaire presents a unique opportunity to understand and explain humanitarian emergencies. This monograph follows an inductive approach in analysing the trajectory of state-building in Zaire as a significant explanatory variable of...

Working Paper

Fundamental Economic and Social Change

The transition from plan to market has fundamentally transformed the social structure in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The small Central Asian Republic of Kyrgyzstan exemplifies these changes.Using data from nationally...

Working Paper

The Relativity of the Welfare Concept

Working Paper

Descriptions of Inequality

Already in the 1950s it became clear that, in spite of its widespread use, the per capita gross national product is an insufficient measure of the well-being of citizens. Thus, in 1954, an expert group within the United Nations suggested that one...

Working Paper

The J-curve is a Gamma-curve

A one-good, representative consumer model of the pre-reform consumer sector of transition economies is developed. An equation is derived that permits empirical estimation of the welfare effect of price liberalization. Empirical estimates are...

Working Paper

Poverty and Welfare Measurement on the Basis of Prospect Theory

This paper examines the measurement of social welfare, poverty and inequality taking into account features that have been found to be important welfare determinants in behavioural economics. Most notably, we incorporate reference-dependence, loss...

Journal Article

Limited commitment and crowding out of private transfers

This paper studies some empirical implications of models with limited risk sharing due to the imperfect enforceability of contracts. We test whether the amount by which public transfers reduce private transfers is affected by features of the economy...

Journal Article

Income Risk, Coping Strategies, and Safety Nets

Poor rural and urban households in developing countries face substantial risks, which they handle with risk-management and risk-coping strategies, including self-insurance through savings and informal insurance mechanisms. Despite these mechanisms...

Blog

Inequality in Focus at UNU-WIDER

by Jukka Pirttilä, Tony Addison August 2014

27 August 2014 Jukka Pirttilä and Tony Addison The last few months have seen major research activity in the area of inequality at UNU-WIDER. An update...

Blog

From the Editor's Desk (June 2013)

by Tony Addison June 2013

29 June 2013 Tony Addison The June-July summer issue of Angle comes to you amid the 19 hours daylight of the Finnish mid-summer. Last week UNU-WIDER’s...

Book Chapter

Poverty in Ethiopia, 2000-11

Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Book Chapter

Growth, Poverty Reduction, and Inequality in Rwanda

Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Working Paper

Needs versus Expediency

Conflict depletes all forms of human and social capital, as well as supporting institutions. The scale of the human damage can overwhelm public action, as there are many competing priorities and resources are often insufficient. What then should be...

Blog

Celebrating 30 years of research for development

by Roger Williamson September 2015

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...

Journal Article

Targeting Social Transfer Programmes

Part of Journal Special Issue Aid, Social Policy and Development

Working Paper

The Demand Side of Social Protection

In fragile states, social protection programmes are often a kaleidoscope of projects financed and implemented by a variety of donors, government agencies and NGOs. Such an environment does not foster a strong sense of ownership by beneficiaries...

Research Brief

The Evolution of Social Protection in Latin America

Social insurance has not succeeded in reducing fiscal deficits and expanding coverage to more beneficiaries in Latin America Social assistance has had a greater impact on poverty and inequality than social insurance In lower-middle-income countries...

Book Chapter

Access to Land and Land Policy Reforms

Part of Book Access to Land, Rural Poverty, and Public Action

Working Paper

Can commercial farming promote rural dynamism in sub-Saharan Africa?

The impact of large commercial farms on neighbouring smallholders in low-income sub-Saharan Africa remains controversial. Bringing evidence to a largely anecdotal debate, we deploy a dataset covering all commercial farms in Mozambique, linking them...

Journal Article

Human Well-Being

Part of Journal Special Issue A Collection of UNU-WIDER articles in Chinese

Book Chapter

Human Well-being

Part of Book Human Well-being

Working Paper

Children and the youth in rural Vietnam

Structural transformation in rural Vietnam has led to rising incomes and a diversification of livelihoods away from agriculture. Using panel data on children in 2,181 rural households surveyed over the 2008-14 period, we examine how the welfare of...

Journal Article

Measuring Non-Economic Well-Being Achievement

Part of Journal Special Issue Inequality and Multidimensional Well-being

Journal Article

How Should We Measure the "Economic" Aspects of Well-Being?

Part of Journal Special Issue Inequality and Multidimensional Well-being

Journal Article

On the Application of Efficiency Analysis to the Study of the Dimensions of Human Development

Part of Journal Special Issue Inequality and Multidimensional Well-being

Journal Article

Inequality and Multidimensional Well-being

Part of Journal Special Issue Inequality and Multidimensional Well-being

Journal Article

Non-economic Well-being Achievement in Pacific Asia

Part of Journal Special Issue Well-being Achievements in Pacific Asia

Book Chapter

Demobilization, Land and Household Livelihoods in Ethiopia

Part of Book From Conflict to Recovery in Africa

Book Chapter

The Relativity of the Welfare Concept

Part of Book The Quality of Life

Working Paper

On the Edge

Safety nets have often been controversial instruments, condemned in some circles as short-term palliatives or even a waste of money. Much recent evidence shows that safety nets not only support poverty reduction but also economic growth. The...

Working Paper

Uruguay’s Income Inequality and Political Regimes during 1981–2010

This study assesses the evolution of inequality in Uruguay during 1981-2010, considered as subperiods built on the basis of the main policy regimes observed: extreme right (1981-84), centre-right (1985-89), right (1990-2004), and centre-left (2005-10...

Working Paper

The Impacts of the Food, fuel and Financial Crises on Households in Nigeria

This paper examines the impacts of the financial, food and fuel crises on the livelihoods of low-income households Nigeria. It uses primary household level data from Nigeria to analyse the impacts of induced price variability on household welfare...

Working Paper

Advancing Small Area Estimation

The poverty mapping methodology for estimating welfare rankings from small areas has proven to be useful in guiding allocation of government funds, regional planning, and general policy formulation. Nevertheless, poverty mapping also suffers from a...

Working Paper

Can the Gains from Argentina's Utilities Reform Offset Credit Shocks?

Relying on a general equilibrium model of Argentina’s economy calibrated for 1993 and internalizing all productivity and scale gains achieved up to 1999, this paper isolates the distributional effects of utilities reform from the impact of other...

Working Paper

Capitalization, Regulation and the Poor

This paper analyses the privatization of utilities in Bolivia, detailing the particularities of the capitalization mechanism which was used for this purpose. The analysis suggests that capitalization and regulation, and the liberalization of the...

Journal Article

Poverty and Welfare Measurement on the Basis of Prospect Theory

Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

Journal Article

Poverty, Vulnerability, and Reference-Dependent Utility

Part of Journal Special Issue Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics

Book Chapter

On the Distributional Implications of Social Protection Reforms in Latin America

Part of Book Falling Inequality in Latin America

Book Chapter

Uruguay's Income Inequality and Political Regimes over 1981-2010

Part of Book Falling Inequality in Latin America

Working Paper

The Reform of the Utilities Sector in Argentina

The privatization of the national public utilities that took place almost a decade ago in Argentina seem to be explained by the persisting deficits of the enterprises, a general dissatisfaction with their performance and the difficulties government...

Working Paper

Taxation in Tanzania

Tanzania has during the past years made substantial progress in stabilising the economy. One of the major issues has been to cut down on government activities and there has been a remarkable contraction. Although tax reform has been an important...

Working Paper

The Impact of Adjustment-Related Social Funds on Income Distribution and Poverty

This study evaluates the impact of the over seventy Social Funds (SFs) which were introduced since the mid-1980s to offset the surge in poverty spurred by adjustment. SFs benefited from greater visibility and financial support by the donor community...

Working Paper

Redistributive Impact of Privatization and the Regulation of Utilities in Chile

Privatization has been one of the primary factors generating changes in the Chilean economy over the last decade. Privatization has faced some opposition due part to its uncertain effect on employment and prices. Despite the importance of the topic...

Working Paper

Household Welfare and Education in Urban Ethiopia

This paper investigates the correlates of household welfare in urban Ethiopia with an emphasis on the impact of education. We use household panel data collected between 1994 and 1997. Welfare is approximated by household income. Although non-educated...

Working Paper

The Social Impact of Privatization and the Regulation of Utilities in Peru

Almost five years after privatization took place in electricity and telecommunications, and major reforms had been carried out in the administration of water, the results is not clear a priori. In order to elucidate the panorama, this research tries...

Working Paper

Institutional Framework and Poverty

This paper focuses on the role of ‘institutions’ in poverty alleviation, where both poverty and institutions are interpreted broadly. The broadening of the poverty notion is important at least from the policy perspective. Even if one were convinced...

Working Paper

Reaching the Poor

Combining data from both, a nationwide standards of living survey (LSMS) and a national population and housing census, this paper generates a disaggregated map of poverty and living conditions in Mozambique. This analytical tool helps to overcome a...

Working Paper

Relevance of the Nordic Model for African Development

Can African countries learn from the development experiences of other regions? Or are the continent’s development challenges unique? This paper looks at the development experience of the Nordic countries, especially Sweden, from the nineteenth...

Working Paper

The Reform of the Utilities Sector in Spain

This paper analyses the reforms that have taken place in the utilities sectors in Spain, with a focus on the political role in shaping the process of these reforms. We argue that the deregulation process was marked by the historical close...

Working Paper

Growth, Income Distribution, and Poverty

This paper reviews recent research dealing with the relationships between economic growth, income distribution, and poverty. This generally fails to find any systematic pattern of change in income distribution during recent decades. Neither does it...

Journal Article

An ASEAN-EU FTA, Regional Production Sharing, and Regional Cohesion, Focus on Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar

Part of Journal Special Issue South-South and North-South Trade Agreements

Book Chapter

Spatial and Temporal Multidimensional Poverty in Nigeria

Part of Book Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa

Book Chapter

Congo (Zaire)

Part of Book War, Hunger, and Displacement

Book Chapter

The South Caucasus

Part of Book War, Hunger, and Displacement

Book Chapter

Access to Land via Land Rental Markets

Part of Book Access to Land, Rural Poverty, and Public Action

Book Chapter

Descriptions of Inequality

Part of Book The Quality of Life

Blog

Learning How to Promote Social Protection from Cambodia’s Garment Workers

by Alisa DiCaprio January 2012

Alisa DiCaprio Innovations in social protection systems design have moved forward quickly on the supply-side over the past decade. But the same degree...