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Beyond Ukraine and Gaza: Five consequences of overlooking other conflictsThe years since 2020 have been one of the most violent periods since the end of the second world war. The war in Ukraine and the escalating violence...
Patricia Justino
Deputy Director
Professor Patricia Justino is a development economist who works at the interface between Development Economics and Political Science. She is a leading expert on political violence and development, and the co-founder and co-director of the Households in Conflict Network. She is currently Deputy Director at UNU-WIDER and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) in Brighton, UK (on leave).
Professor Justino’s research focuses on the relationship between political violence, institutional transformation, governance and development outcomes. She has led major research programmes funded by the European Commission, the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID). She is currently the director of a ESRC large grant project on the relationship between inequality, social trust and governance outcomes.
Professor Justino’s research has been published in leading international journals such as the Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Research, and the World Bank Economic Review, and is the lead author of A Micro-Level Perspective on the Dynamics of Conflict, Violence and Development (Oxford University Press). She has held several advisory positions in major international organizations, including Action Aid, DFID, FAO, UNDP, UNESCO, UNICEF, UN Women, USAID, and the World Bank. She was the director of the MICROCON research programme and deputy director of the TAMNEAC Initial Training Network.
Professor Justino holds a MPhil in Economics from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Economics from the University of London. She has held visiting positions at Harvard University (2007-09) and the European University Institute (2017), among others.
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Working Paper
Concealed costs: illicit economies and the erosion of the local tax base in ColombiaTax revenues are fundamental to state-building and development, particularly in the aftermath of conflict. Through the lens of the recent post-conflict experience of Colombia, this paper explores the challenges of increasing tax revenues amid...
Blog
The Demand for a Fair International Financial ArchitectureCritically examining the Global South’s proposals for international financial architecture reformsThis report offers a critical examination of the...
Journal Article
Can preferences for redistribution explain the impact of austerity on political participation? Evidence from the UKMany European countries introduced austerity policies to control rising debt in the wake of the Great Recession of the late 2000s. Recent research suggests that austerity fuelled political polarization, instability, and populism in Europe. However...
Working Paper
Faraway, so close: the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war on political violence in Asian countriesWe show that the Russia–Ukraine-war-induced changes in the international price of wheat affected political violence in Asia. Using data from 13 countries and more than four million cell-level observations, we show that a higher wheat price increases...
Working Paper
Institutional trust in the time of coronaWe study how the stringency of policy measures to counter the COVID-19 pandemic affects individuals’ trust in formal institutions. Drawing on micro-level panel data from Germany spanning an 18-month period from the onset of the pandemic, we show that...
Working Paper
The legacy of coercive cotton cultivation in colonial MozambiqueWe examine the long-term impact of forced labour on individual risk behaviour and economic decisions. For that, we focus on a policy of coercive cotton cultivation enforced in colonial Mozambique between 1926 and 1961. We combine archival sources...
Working Paper
Inequality and voting in fragile countriesThe political consequences of economic inequality have been debated in academic and policy circles for centuries. The nature of this relationship seems highly dependent on specific contexts, with empirical studies showing mixed evidence on how...
Working Paper
Cultivating change: the long-term impact of forced labour in MozambiqueFollowing the abolition of slavery, various forms of compulsory labour were adopted by colonial powers to develop their economies. This paper analyses the contemporary consequences of compulsory cotton production—a forced labour system that operated...
Blog
Improving early child development outcomes in low-income settingsImproving early child development outcomes in low-income settings requires affordable, sustainable, and easily scalable solutions. The “First Steps”...
Journal Article
Do the principles of effective development co-operation improve development outcomes?Elaborated in their current form in Busan in 2011, and reiterated in Geneva in 2022, the four Principles of Effective Development Co-operation comprise country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, and transparency and mutual...
Blog
Development aid cuts will hit fragile countries hard, could fuel violent conflictFragile and least developed countries have had their development assistance cut drastically, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation...
Journal Article
Africa’s lockdown dilemmaAs the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, sub-Saharan African countries faced the dilemma of how to minimize viral transmission without adversely affecting the poor. This study proposes an index of lockdown readiness, taking into account housing conditions...
Working Paper
‘Ask not what your country can do for you’This paper investigates how persistent changes in trust caused by the Great Recession have affected how governments and citizens across Europe responded to the next global crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic.We show that increases in individualism and...
Journal Article
Improving parenting practices for early child developmentThis study investigates the short- and medium-term impact of a randomized group-based early child development program targeting parents of children aged 6–24 months in a poor, rural district of Rwanda. This low-intensity, short-duration, and low-cost...
Working Paper
Youth, violence, and sustaining peaceViolent conflicts affect the lives and livelihoods of almost one quarter of the world’s population. But the effects of violent conflict are not uniform. This study assesses the differential effects of violent conflict on young people’s education, job...
Blog
Why the Aid Effectiveness Principles are important for developmentDemonstrating empirically the Aid Effectiveness Principles' global impact on development is a challenge. But according to Rachel M. Gisselquist...
Working Paper
Aid and fragile statesAid is still an important feature of the development landscape. Fragile states, in particular, have the greatest development needs but due to their poor governance they are the least likely countries to use aid effectively to meet their development...
Working Paper
What drives parental investments in early childhood?This paper investigates the causal impact of a randomized video intervention designed to study the determinants of parental time investments in early childhood among low-income parents. We designed and screened a video that provided information and...
Blog
After the war – thinking about reconstruction in Ukraine
Russia’s military involvement in Ukraine began in March 2014 with the annexation of Crimea, but it wasn’t until February 2022 that Russia shocked the...
Blog
Working together on the puzzle of peace: The role of partnerships
When the theme for the first WIDER Development Conference of 2022—peace, security, and conflict—was chosen some years ago, no one could have predicted...
Working Paper
Welfare losses, preferences for redistribution, and political participationThis paper studies the effect of austerity on forms of political participation—including voting, appealing for reform, and peaceful protesting—and the role of preferences for redistribution in shaping the relationship between individual exposure to...
Blog
Four global problems that will be aggravated by the UK’s recent cuts to international aidUK economic forecasts have improved markedly since the September 2022 mini-budget. The economic recession may now be more shallow and public borrowing...
Working Paper
Do the effectiveness principles matter for development?The Principles of Effective Development Co-operation provide an important reference point for foreign aid and international development assistance. Although the principles—country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, and transparency...
Working Paper
The violent legacy of fascismWe still have limited knowledge about the long-term effects of fascism on European democracies. European countries experienced cycles of violence between the 1960s and 1980s. Can such violence be explained by legacies of mobilization during fascism...
Policy Brief
Development effectiveness in fragile contextsThis policy brief draws on the studies presented at the International Research Conference on the Effectiveness of Development Cooperation on 17–18 November 2022, in Brussels, Belgium, jointly organized by UNU-WIDER and the European Commission (DG...
Policy Brief
Building evidence around the effectiveness principlesThis policy brief draws on the studies presented at the International Research Conference on the Effectiveness of Development Cooperation on 17–18 November 2022, in Brussels, Belgium and jointly organized by UNU-WIDER and the European Commission (DG...
Blog
What would be the economic consequences of a military stalemate in Ukraine?Russia’s war in Ukraine may reach a stalemate as neither side appears in reach of a military victory. Unless a settlement can be agreed, a frozen...
Journal Article
An exploration of the association between fuel subsidies and fuel riotsBetween 2005 and 2018, 41 countries had at least one riot directly associated with popular demand for fuel. We make use of a new international dataset on fuel riots to explore the effects of fuel prices and price regimes on fuel riots. In line with...
Working Paper
The social consequences of organized crime in ItalyOrganized crime affects security, development, and democracy worldwide, but not much is known about its social consequences. We study how exposure to the presence of organized crime groups shapes the social capital of Italian citizens, including...
Working Paper
Wartime governance and state-building trajectories in post-conflict societiesTo date, there is limited understanding about the consequences of wartime dynamics for post-war state-building processes. This paper explores one such dynamics—the forms of governance exercised by armed groups during wartime—and proposes a...
Blog
The war in Ukraine: Civilian vulnerability, resilience, and resistance
The current and future civilian impacts of the war in Ukraine are immense. This column argues that the levels of vulnerability and resistance of...
Blog
The conflict in Ukraine - the role of civilians
While there is much to discuss about the geopolitics of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, let's not forget the men, women and children of Ukraine who...
Working Paper
Revisiting the links between economic inequality and political violenceThe main aim of this paper is to explore theoretically important mechanisms through which economic inequalities may affect the emergence of political violence given the forms of social mobilization they (may) generate. The paper identifies and...
Working Paper
Community organization and armed group behaviourThis paper investigates how armed groups affect the organization of local communities during armed conflict in Colombia. We estimate the effect of communities’ exposure to armed groups with an econometric specification that takes into account...
Working Paper
An exploration of the association between fuel subsidies and fuel riotsBetween 2005 and 2018, 41 countries had at least one riot directly associated with popular demand for fuel. We make use of a new international dataset on fuel riots to explore the effects of fuel prices and price regimes on fuel riots. In line with...
Journal Article
Life with CoronaGender differences (GD) in mental health have come under renewed scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic. While rapidly emerging evidence indicates a deterioration of mental health in general, it remains unknown whether the pandemic will have an impact...
Blog
Our project on the institutional legacies of violent conflict
One of the most critical challenges in international development today is to understand how best to support peace, security, economic recovery, and...
Working Paper
Do pandemics lead to rebellion? Policy responses to COVID-19, inequality, and protests in the USAThis paper analyses how inequality across counties in the United States of America has shaped the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence of protests.The empirical analysis combines weekly data between January and December 2020 on levels of...
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