Monday 8 February

08:00 – 08:30
Registration
08:30 – 09:00
Welcome and introductions
Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, UNU-WIDER
09:00 – 11:00
Session 1: Political institutions and electoral systems
Chair: Nita Rudra
Marina Dodlova, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (with Lay)
Political regimes and pro-poor transfers in developing countries

Joan Costa-Font, London School of Economics and Political Science(with Parmar)
Does strengthening the political agency increase preventive health care use? Evidence from village meetings in India

Dragan Filipovich (with Niño-Zarazúa)
Identifying the electoral impact of Progresa-Oportunidades: research design issues

Kaushik Basu, NLSIU (with Harish, Dhar, Lahiri and Biswas)
Is coalition form of government better for protection of socially backward classes in India?
11:00 – 11:15 Coffee
11:15 – 13:15
Session 2: Social Protection, elites and social classes
Chair: Kate Pruce
Nita Rudra, Georgetown University (with Desai)
The global middle class and social protection in developing countries

Juan Bogliaccini, Universidad Católica del Uruguay (with Luna)
Deflecting my burden, hindering redistribution: How elites influence tax legislation in Latin America

Selene Ghisolfi, Institute for International Economic Studies, Stockholm University
Elite capture and fairness norms

Anna Giolbas, German Institute of Global and Area Studies (with Dodlova)
Regime type, inequality, and redistributive transfers in developing countries
13:15 – 14:15 Lunch
14:15 – 16:15
Session 3: The politics of social protection in sub-Saharan Africa I
Chair: Blessing Chiripanhura
Badru Bukenya, Makerere University (with Hickey)
The politics of promoting social protection in Uganda: Social cash transfers and the national health insurance scheme

Tom Lavers, ILO Research Department (with Chemouni and Ruton)
Understanding elite commitment to social protection: Rwanda's VUP and Mutuelles de Santé

Kate Pruce, University of Manchester (with Hickey)
The politics of social protection in Zambia

Fredrick O. Wanyama, Murang’a University College (with McCord)
The politics of scaling up social protection in Kenya
16:15 – 16:30 Coffee
16.30 – 18:30
Session 4: Taxation and redistribution I
Chair: Verónica Amarante
Christophe Muller, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, Aix-Marseille University
A new statistical method of optimal transfers for poverty alleviation

Ira Gang, Rutgers University (with Epstein)
Taxation, social protection and governance decentralization

Paul Mosley, University of Sheffield (with Abdulai)
The political economy of progressive export taxation in Africa and Latin America

Petr Janský, Institute of Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University (with Cobham)
Measuring Justice in Domestic Taxation: A 'Fair Tax Index'?
19:30 –
Group dinner
Tuesday 9 February

08:30 – 09:00
Social Assistance, Politics and Institutions (SAPI) database
Miguel Niño-Zarazúa, UNU-WIDER
09:00 – 11:00
Session 5: Social protection, poverty and inequality
Chair: Carla Canelas
Verónica Amarante, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (with Jiménez)
Cash transfers in Latin America: effects on poverty and redistribution

Camila Arza, CONICET and Centro Interdisciplinario para el Estudio de Políticas Públicas
Building egalitarian social protection systems in unequal societies? The expansion of basic pensions in Latin America

Blessing Chiripanhura, University of Namibia (with Niño-Zarazúa)
The dynamics of impacts and redistributive effects of social protection in Namibia

Victoria Tenenbaum, Ministerio de Desarrollo Social (with Amarante and Colacce)
National Care System in Uruguay: who benefits and who pays?
11:00 – 11:15 Coffee
11:15 – 13:15
Session 6: Social impacts of transfer programmes
Chair: Lidia Ceriani
Carla Canelas, UNU-WIDER (with Niño-Zarazúa)
The social impacts of Bolivia’s social protection system

Sanjay Jain, University of Cambridge
Worker retraining and transfer payments: the political economy of social protection

Belen Saenz de Miera Juarez, London School of Economics and Political Science
The role of public health insurance in protecting against the costs of ill health. Evidence from Mexico

Yeasmin Sayeed, Örebro University
Effect of girls’ secondary school stipend on completed schooling and age at marriage: evidence from Bangladesh
13:15 – 14:15 Lunch
14:15 – 16:15
Session 7: The Politics of social protection in sub-Saharan Africa II
Chair: Christine Awiti
Tom Lavers, ILO Research Department
Social protection in an aspiring developmental state: the political drivers of Ethiopia's PSNP and CBHI

Sam Hickey, University of Manchester
The global politics of promoting social protection

Takaaki Masaki, College of William and Mary
Fiscal transfers, local tax revenues, and public service provision: evidence from Tanzania

Jeremy Seekings, University of Cape Town
Policy diffusion and the enduring distinctiveness of African welfare regimes
16:15 – 16:30 Coffee
16.30 – 18:00
Session 8: Taxation and redistribution II
Chair: Ira Gang
Lidia Ceriani, World Bank (with Bolch and Lopez Calva)
The arithmetics and politics of domestic resource mobilization

Jason Davis, University of Michigan
Fiscal capacity and pareto efficiency: How failure to tax the poor can hurt the poor

Björn Jahnke, Leibniz Universität Hannover
How does petty corruption affect tax morale in Sub-Saharan Africa? An empirical analysis
19:00
Free to dine out
Wednesday 10 February

08:30 – 10:30
Session 9: Social protection expenditure and affordability
Chair: Mohammad Badiuzzaman
Hiroaki Matsuura, Shoin University
Constitutional socio-economic rights, tax and government social expenditure, and child health outcomes in Latin America

Mansoob Murshed, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam (with Badiuzzaman and Pulok)
On the determinants of social protection expenditure in a cross section of developing nations

Jeremy Seekings, University of Cape Town
Redefining the ‘affordability’ of social assistance programmes: the child support grant in South Africa, 1998-2014

Nora Strecker, ETH Zurich (with Egger and Radulescu)
On the spread of social protection systems
10:30 – 10:45 Coffee
10:45 – 12:15
Session 10: The macroeconomics of social protection and impacts
Chair: Selene Ghisolfi
Christine Awiti, University of Mainz
Macroeconomic stability and social protection

Thomas Roca, Agence Française de Développement (with Hélène Ferrer)
Resilience to crisis through social protection. Can we build the case?

Silvio Daidone, FAO (with Sebastian, de la O Campos, Davis, Niang, and Pellerano)
Gender differences in child investment behavior among agricultural households: evidence from an unconditional cash transfer program in Lesotho
12:15 – 13:15
Publications and wrap up session
13:30
Farewell lunch

Context

Related event
UNU-WIDER Symposium - The political economy of social protection in developing countries
Project

The economics and politics of taxation and social protection