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Understanding labour market inequality in Indonesia and India
Growing income inequality poses a major global challenge, even as the inequality between countries has shrunk due to rapid economic growth in nations...
Kunal Sen
Director
Professor Kunal Sen has over three decades of experience in academic and applied development economics research. He is the author of eight books and the editor of five volumes on the economics and political economy of development. Since 2019 he has served as Director of UNU-WIDER while on leave from the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, where he is a professor of development economics.
Professor Sen is a leading international expert on the political economy of growth and development. He has performed extensive research on international finance, the political economy determinants of inclusive growth, the dynamics of poverty, social exclusion, female labour force participation, and the informal sector in developing economies. His research has focused on India, East Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa.
Professor Sen’s books include The Political Economy of India’s Growth Episodes (2016), The Process of Financial Liberalization in India (1997), and the Economic Restructuring in East Asia and India: Perspectives on Policy Reform (1995). His is a co-editor of Deals and Development: The Political Dynamics of Growth Episodes (2018) and The Politics of Inclusive Development (2016). And has also written twenty-five chapters in other volumes and published more than ninety peer-reviewed journal articles on topics in his field.
In addition to his work as a professor of development economics, Kunal Sen has been the Joint Research Director of the Effective States and Inclusive Development (ESID) research centre, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Labor Economics in Bonn. He has also served in advisory roles with national governments and bilateral and multilateral development agencies, including the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
He has been awarded the Sanjaya Lall Prize in 2006 and Dudley Seers Prize in 2003 for his publications.
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Blog
Does the Kuznets Curve still matter 70 years on? Yes! Here’s whySeventy years ago, Simon Kuznets was immortalised by his finding that inequality rises first and then falls later—the hypothesis widely known as the...
Journal Article
Broken ladders? Labour market inequality in Indonesia and IndiaThis paper examines labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach that draws on a job ladder framework. In the framework, I differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal employment and between formal...
Journal Article
Politicians, institutional incentives, and citizen welfare: evidence from a lab-in-the-field experiment in IndiaWe examine how politicians and non-politicians in rural India respond to behavioural incentives. Using a modified dictator game, we vary treatments (and incentives) across the nature of interactions, the visibility of actions, and an upfront promise...
Working Paper
The political economy of structural transformation in African citiesAn important stylized fact about African economic development is the phenomenon of urbanization without structural transformation. This paper provides a political economy analysis of the lack of structural transformation in African cities, drawing on...
Journal Special Issue
Clientelist Politics and DevelopmentPolitical clientelism — which reflects strategic, discretionary, and targeted exchange of private goods and services for political support to the incumbent — has characterised distributive politics in the Global South for decades. The conditional...
Working Paper
Institutional change and persistenceThere is a broad agreement that political and economic institutions matter for long-term development. Yet relatively little is known as to how to adopt good quality institutions and reform weak or poor institutions, for which one needs to know how...
Book Chapter
Impact of COVID-19 on Employment and Earnings in GhanaPart of Book COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
Journal Article
The gendered impact of digital jobs platformsTHIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study examines the impact of digital labor-market platforms on jobs outcomes using a randomized encouragement design embedded in a longitudinal survey of Mozambican technical-vocational college graduates. We...
Journal Article
Is there a fiscal resource curse?While it is recognised that the ability of states to raise revenues (i.e., fiscal capacity) is important for the provision of key public goods in less developed economies, it is less clear what its determinants are and what explains cross-country...
Book
COVID-19 and the Informal EconomyA key challenge for the post-COVID global economy is whether the disproportionate impact of the crisis on informal workers, who form the majority of the world’s workforce, will be acknowledged. Or whether harmful and negative stereotypes will persist...
Working Paper
Labour market inequality in two Asian giantsWe examine the nature of labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach drawing from the job ladder framework. In the framework, we differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal and between formal, upper...
Blog
How India’s economy has fared under ten years of Narendra Modi
More than 960 million Indians will head to the polls in the world’s biggest election between April 19 and early June. The ruling Bharatiya Janata...
Blog
Nigeria: botched economic reforms plunge the country into crisisNigeria, Africa’s largest economy, is facing an economic crisis. From a botched currency redesign to the removal of fuel subsidies and a currency...
Policy Brief
How to create decent work for womenDespite advancements for gender equality in some spheres, labour market outcomes for women continue to be worse than for men. Gender gaps in pay, labour force participation rates, and measures of job quality are stubbornly persistent and continue to...
Journal Article
Payment delay in workfare programmes and household welfareUsing the lens of a life-cycle model, we argue that an administrative failure of a wage payment delay in a workfare programme could adversely affect the welfare of the poor through two channels. First, it imposes an implicit consumption tax on the...
Journal Article
Women’s Work – Routes to Social and Economic EmpowermentPart of Journal Special Issue Women’s Work
Journal Special Issue
Women’s WorkIn recent decades, trends in female labour force participation rates have been very heterogeneous across developing countries, despite widespread economic growth, fertility decline, and narrowing gender gaps in education.However, globally, gender...
Blog
Financing development goals in times of crisisPursuing the global development agenda will require genuine commitment from political leaders and significant stepping-up of government efforts. But...
Working Paper
Behind the numbers: exploring caste inequities in entrepreneurial successThe documented under-representation of marginalized groups in business ownership and the labour market is a concerning issue. This study explores how caste disparities in small-firm entrepreneurship impact on firm performance in India, focusing on...
Journal Article
The drivers of investment and savings ratesThis note explores the literature on the determinants of foreign direct investment and domestic savings. With respect to foreign direct investment, it argues that institutional quality is the key driver of the type of investment that is necessary for...
Blog
Looking back, moving forward – a photo retrospective of the 2019-2023 WIDER Work Programme
As we conclude the groundbreaking years of the 2019–2023 work programme on transforming economies, states, and societies, we reflect on the milestones...
Working Paper
Construction productivity and global inequalityTwo well established stylized facts of economic development are a strong correlation between investment and income, and large differences in investment rates across countries. Construction is the largest component of investment. This paper examines...
Policy Brief
Tasks, skills, and institutionsConcerns about widening income inequality within countries continue to gain prominence in public debate worldwide. In the last decade, attention to the concentration of income at the very top of the distribution (top 1%) has increased. This...
Blog
Pinelopi Goldberg warns of the impact of deglobalization: Sobering insights from the 27th WIDER Annual Lecture
With several violent conflicts around the world weighing heavily on our minds, we attended the 27th WIDER Annual Lecture. Dr. Pinelopi Goldberg’s...
Working Paper
Barriers or catalysts? Traditional institutions and social mobility in rural IndiaWe examine how village-level social group dominance affects the educational and occupational mobility of minority and other social groups in rural India across multiple generations. We distinguish between upper caste and own-group dominance and...
Policy Brief
How to support the emergence of effective tax systemsThere has been a revival of interest in the state’s role in economic development. Recent research argues that the most successful economies are those where effective states provide crucial public goods and services. The historical emergence of...
Blog
UNU-WIDER’s new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) advances progress on SDG 8: Decent WorkUNU-WIDER’s 6-week online course on delivering Sustainable Development Goal 8 (SDG 8) brings together recent research on the linkages between economic...
Blog
Will a revenue boom support development in resource-rich economies?The post-COVID-19 economic recovery and Russia’s war with Ukraine have caused some natural resource prices to reach new highs. Although forecasting...
Journal Article
Do economic and political crises lead to corruption? The role of institutionsA large body of literature exists on the role of institutions in combating corruption and its influence on economic development. However, there is a paucity of literature on the inter-relationships between economic and political crises, institutions...
Journal Article
Constraints on the executive and tax revenues in the long runPart of Journal Special Issue Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
The origins of fiscal states in developing economiesPart of Journal Special Issue Fiscal state capacity
Journal Article
A manufacturing (re)naissance?This study examines industrialization in developing countries. It introduces the GGDC-UNU-WIDER Economic Transformation Database, which provides consistent annual data of employment, real and nominal value added by 12 sectors in 51 economies for the...
Journal Article
Multigenerational mobility among males in IndiaMost studies of intergenerational mobility focus on adjacent generations, and there is limited knowledge about multigenerational mobility—status transmission across three generations. We examine multigenerational educational and occupational mobility...
Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacityThis special issue presents new research on the state and its links to economic and social development. The special issue focuses on the processes of institutional transformation of the state, looking at how fiscal states arise in the developing...
Book
Tasks, Skills, and InstitutionsDeveloped countries have experienced a polarization in earnings and in employment, namely stronger growth in the earnings and jobs for the most and least skilled workers at the expense of those in the middle. This pattern has been attributed to...
Working Paper
Minimum wages and changing wage inequality in IndiaUsing nationally representative data on employment and earnings, this paper documents a fall in wage inequality in India over the last two decades. It then examines the role played by increasing minimum wages for the lowest skilled workers in India...
Blog
Does political clientelism lead to higher corruption and a weaker rule of law?Political clientelism is the strategic, discretionary, and targeted exchange of goods and services between politicians and voters for political...
Journal Article
The labour market impact of COVID-19 lockdownsIn this study, we provide causal evidence of the immediate and near-term impact of stringent COVID-19 lockdown policies on employment outcomes, using Ghana as a case study. We take advantage of a specific policy setting, in which strict stay-at-home...
Blog
The developing world is facing a new debt crisis: What can we do about it?The recently concluded COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh had one important outcome for developing countries: the announcement of a loss and damage fund. This...
Policy Brief
Climbing the job ladderMost workers in developing countries work in the informal labour market Lower-tier informal work leads to a dead end in the countries in this study, with little opportunity to move up the job ladder While those in upper-tier informal work are the...
Blog
How can cities create better jobs in sub-Saharan Africa?Structural transformation involves the movement of workers from low-productivity sectors to high-productivity sectors. It has historically been...
Working Paper
India’s economic development since independenceWhen India became a republic in 1950, the economy was primarily agrarian, with three-fifths of output originating from agriculture. In the sixty years since independence, there has been a significant transformation of economic activity away from...
Blog
Social mobility among disadvantaged groups in IndiaIn recent decades, India has experienced rapid economic growth alongside radical affirmative action programs enacted since independence. This column...
Blog
In memory of Martin Ravallion: A global leader in development economics(19 March 1952 – 24 December 2022) It is with the greatest sadness and a deep sense of grief and shock that we received the news of the passing of...
Book Chapter
Introduction: the changing nature of work and inequalityPart of Book Tasks, Skills, and Institutions
Book
The Job LadderUsing a range of countries from the Global South, this book examines heterogeneity within informal work by applying a common conceptual framework and empirical methodology. The country studies use panel data to study the dynamics of worker...
Blog
Not too long and not too short: Introducing the new UNU-WIDER and Cambridge University Press series in Development EconomicsSimon Kuznets’ pipe dream was to have economic inequality data that rarely existed when he was writing. What are the pipe dreams of today’s...
Journal Article
Doing business in a deals worldThe Doing Business reports have evoked an intense policy debate about whether countries should simplify regulatory rules or make them more stringent. We argue that doing business in developing countries is based on deals struck between firms and the...
Journal Article
Does the gender of the owner affect the productivity of enterprises in India’s informal economy?We examine the patterns and correlates of the productivity gap between male- and female-owned enterprises in India’s informal sector. Female-owned firms are 45 per cent less productive than male-owned firms on average, with the greatest productivity...
Journal Article
Gender and vulnerable employment in the developing worldThis study 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...
Journal Article
Clientelism, corruption and the rule of lawPart of Journal Special Issue Clientelist Politics and Development
Blog
Digital platforms and job search: Experimental evidence from MozambiqueDigital technologies can be deployed to improve job search, but their effectiveness in practice is disrupted. This column uses experimental data to...
Blog
Fiscal states in developing economies: Why do they matter and where do they come from?Modern states are complex organizations which perform a broad range of functions. They have an important role in economic and human development. The...
Book
The Developer’s DilemmaThe developer’s dilemma is thus: developing countries seek inclusive economic development — i.e., structural transformation — sufficiently broad-based to raise the income of the poor. Inclusive economic growth requires falling income inequality to...
Journal Special Issue
What sustains informalityThe special issue contributes significantly to critical issues related to the nature of informal employment and its determinants, how informal firms can grow their business and productivity, and the effects of labour market regulations and social...
Working Paper
Labour market effects of digital matching platformsCan digital labour market platforms reduce search frictions in either formal or informal labour markets? We study this question using a randomized experiment embedded in a tracer study of the work transitions of graduates from technical and...
Blog
Can access to finance spur entrepreneurship in Indian informal sector?Credit constraints, a consequence of the widespread failure of credit markets in developing countries, are widely regarded as a key constraint to...
Blog
Reducing inequality — why working together is no longer just an optionThe time limit to reach the goals of the 2030 Agenda is now just eight years away. It is vital to pursue a new model of partnerships, based on...
Blog
What does ‘promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth’ mean for everyday life?Erica stands under a rudimentary market stall in Accra, Ghana, selling fruits — she has done this every day for 10 years now. Like many women in the...
Research Brief
Three key insights for research on social mobility in developing countriesThe volume, Social Mobility in Developing Countries: Concepts, Methods, and Determinants, brings together leading scholars from a range of social science disciplines working on a variety of issues related to social mobility. Three motivations guide...
Journal Article
Informal institutions, transaction risk, and firm productivity in MyanmarIn many low-income transition countries, where formal institutions such as courts do not function effectively, informal institutions are often used by firms to minimize transaction risks. We examine the role of informal institutions, in the forms of...
Working Paper
Corruption and crisis: do institutions matter?While the short-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on lives and livelihoods are well understood, we know little about the effect of the pandemic for longer-term outcomes such as corruption. We look at the historical data on political and economic...
Blog
Why women are made to rely on vulnerable workThe gender pay-gap is one of the foremost indicators of gender inequality and thus a guide for women’s economic empowerment policies. Although there...
Journal Article
Finance, gender and entrepreneurshipPart of Journal Special Issue What sustains informality
Journal Article
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the poorWe examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the livelihoods of the poor in a semi-rural setting in Bangladesh. We use an unusually rich dataset which tracks the economic and financial transactions of sixty poor and very poor individuals and...
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