Background Note
Artificial intelligence versus COVID-19 in developing countries
In this note, I will refer to current efforts to harness artificial intelligence (AI) in the push back against COVID-19, note its promises, limitations, potential pitfalls, and identify priorities for developing countries. Artificial Intelligence is...
Working Paper
Gender and vulnerable employment in the developing world
This paper investigates gender inequality in vulnerable employment: forms of employment typically featuring high precariousness, inadequate earnings, and lack of decent working conditions. Using a large collection of harmonized household surveys from...
Blog
Looking ahead to COP26
The long-awaited COP26 in Glasgow is about to start. Billed as the most important COP to date, it is widely seen as a last chance to avoid a global...
Blog
Reducing wasted gas emissions is an opportunity for clean air and climate
by
Kathryn McPhail, Etienne Romsom
October 2021
The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) is seen as the last best chance for countries and companies to set out how they are actually...
Blog
From summits to solutions: what success means at COP26
by
Mahmoud Mohieldin
October 2021
At the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, world leaders discussed the need to scale-up ambition to address key global challenges...
Working Paper
Motherhood and flexible jobs
We study the causal effect of motherhood on labour market outcomes in Latin America by adopting an event study approach around the birth of the first child based on panel data from national household surveys for Chile, Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay.Our...
Working Paper
Heterogeneous informality in Costa Rica and Nicaragua
Informal work is often considered a place of employment for marginalized and vulnerable workers who have been rationed out of preferred formal work. However, informality can also be seen as a dynamic sector that budding entrepreneurs and those...
Working Paper
Climate change and developing country interests
We consider the interplay of climate change impacts, global mitigation policies, and the interests of developing countries to 2050. Focusing on Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, we employ a structural approach to biophysical and economic modeling that...
Working Paper
What makes countries negotiate away their corporate tax base?
Qualitative case studies suggest that the outcomes of tax treaty negotiations are determined by power politics and negotiating capability. In contrast, quantitative studies have tended to depart from a model that implies absolute gains, full...
Blog
Developing countries would benefit from improved tax collection: What can help?
The ability to raise revenues from taxes – called “fiscal capacity” – is a crucial aspect for the functioning of any state. Being able to tax citizens...
Working Paper
Understanding the boom
There are large volumes of gas offshore Tanzania, which has raised hopes of a boom. But those hopes look set to be disappointed. A boom would depend on there being a sizeable flow of revenue to government from producing and exporting gas. This paper...
Working Paper
Understanding the boom
A significant natural resource discovery creates excited popular expectations of imminent wealth. But the size of a boom is usually overestimated and the delay in receiving revenues is underestimated. This paper takes stock of the sequencing, timing...
Working Paper
Innovation efforts in developing countries
The identification of potential innovation efforts plays an important role in evaluating the innovation process. The innovation efforts of firms in developing countries might be different to those of Western enterprises. This paper evaluates...
Working Paper
IMF conditionality and structural reforms
The global economy, dominated by the consequences of a disastrous health crisis and international tensions, needs policy support to regain its growth dynamic. To regain an inclusive and sustainable growth dynamic, structural policies of governments...
Working Paper
Structural transformation and international trade
How does international trade affect structural transformation in developing countries? We use data on sectoral allocation of labour and value-added in 46 developing economies over the period 1995–2017 and exploit for identification plausibly...
Working Paper
Watts happening to work? The labour market effects of South Africa’s electricity crisis
Frequent electricity outages threaten to impede the benefits of expanded access achieved by many developing countries in recent decades. A large literature documents these negative effects, however almost none consider labour market effects. This...
Working Paper
Job accessibility and spatial equity
Addressing unemployment and income inequalities in transport and land-use policies is important, particularly in South Africa, which is currently experiencing one of the highest unemployment rates and income inequality in the world. This research...
Working Paper
Mobile Internet and income improvement
New developments of existing technologies over time have led to emergent patterns of technology adoption and, accordingly, changing impacts on economy and society. Focusing on the arrival of mobile internet in the early 2010s in developing countries...
Journal Article
Motherhood and flexible jobs
Part of Journal Special Issue
Women’s Work
Working Paper
Did Uganda’s corporate tax incentives benefit the Ugandan economy or only the firms?
Uganda has one of the lowest corporate income tax collection rates in sub-Saharan Africa, while offering generous corporate tax incentives. It is unclear whether tax incentives achieve their objectives without primarily benefiting firms, potentially...
Working Paper
Tax-motivated transfer mispricing in South Africa
This paper provides the first direct systematic evidence of profit shifting through transfer mispricing in a developing country. Using South African transaction-level customs data, I directly test for transfer price deviations from arm’s-length...
Working Paper
Big and ‘unprofitable’
Globally, the largest 0.001 per cent of firms earn roughly one-third of all corporate profits. Nonetheless, there is little understanding of how profit shifting differs across firm size. Using South African corporate tax returns from 2010–14, we...