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Publications (307)
Book Chapter
Public social insurance is part of the broader social protection “toolbox”, typically understood to comprise also social assistance measures (such as cash transfers, benefits in kind, fuel subsidies and so on), social services and public works (see, for example, Carter et al. 2019). Until recently...
Blog
As greenhouse gases once again climb to record levels, countries are under pressure to make the move to a low-carbon economy. Policies that move in this direction are needed to mitigate against the worst impacts of climate change, but policy choices will have winners and losers. As it is crucial to...
Report
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This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania Mainland. This work was carried out by University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the project partners. The results presented in this report are derived using TAZMOD version 2.9, which is part of the SOUTHMOD bundle...
Blog
Uganda, with a fiscal deficit of 5.6% in 2023, has increasingly turned to local resources to make up for its revenue shortfall since the World Bank suspended its funding on 8 August 2023 over the country’s anti-homosexuality law. In early April 2024, traders in downtown Kampala protested against...
Working Paper
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– Re-thinking the use of unit values or community prices
Analysis of household food consumption patterns and welfare requires knowledge of household demand responses to changes in price and income. Estimation of the price and expenditure elasticities requires detailed data on household purchases and prices, which are often not available in many developing...
![Policy Brief 2/2024 cover image](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Publications/Policy-brief/Image/PB2024-2-cover-image.png?itok=Lsq6fHou)
Sustainable economic development hinges on the ability of firms and households to maintain growth and wellbeing. How have Tanzania’s firms and households performed in recent decades, and what policies can improve their resilience against future shocks?Firms that export are better able to sustain...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Upgrading and multi-scalar industrial policy in the Tanzanian textile and apparel sector value chain
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Sustaining Tanzania's Economic Development
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– A firm and household perspective
This book addresses performance and strategies adopted by firms and households in Tanzania to navigate shocks and achieve sustainability. How successful have firms and households been in building resilience to sustain their growth and development? Has the ability to navigate successfully through...
Blog
Sub-Saharan Africa has abundant natural resources and a substantial market, with an estimated population of 1.2 billion. The population is projected to grow by nearly 80% and reach almost 2 billion people by 2043. This population growth is expected to parallel an economic expansion, with annual...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
When seeking to increase their tax revenues, policy-makers face a likely tradeoff between decreasing personal income tax rates (making formalizing more attractive and potentially contributing to revenue) and alternatively raising tax rates (potentially slowing down the formalization of the economy...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A cross-sectoral analysis from a gender perspective
Mainland Tanzania has seen two decades of significant social policy reforms and transformations in its social and economic structures, whilst the country continues to grapple with persisting gender inequalities. This article examines Tanzania's social policy developments from a gender perspective...
![ZANMOD group photo](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Blog/Image/ZANMOD-team-group-photo-227px.jpg?itok=-igoO5jY)
– Latest addition to the SOUTHMOD programme
ZANMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for Zanzibar, was launched in November 2023. The model will aid local authorities and researchers in understanding how taxation and social protection policies can be improved to reduce poverty and enhance equality.The research and coding work for the...
Blog
As we conclude the groundbreaking years of the 2019–2023 work programme on transforming economies, states, and societies, we reflect on the milestones achieved and anticipate the journey ahead.In 2019, I assumed the role of Director at UNU-WIDER and initiated the planning of the new work programme...
Blog
Launched in 2015 and completed in 2022, the Institutional Diagnostic Project aimed at identifying institutional factors that affect development, reforms that may help address existing institutional constraints, and factors that can preclude or enable these reforms.Using the motto ‘institutions...
Blog
Data is the key to informed decision-making in today's rapidly changing world. As nations strive to address complex economic challenges, data-driven insights have become indispensable. South Africa is no exception, facing issues like declining GDP per capita, sluggish productivity growth, and rising...
![Group photo at the URA data lab April 2023. Image: Kibuuka Mukisa / UNU-WIDER](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Events/Image/Group-photo-URA.jpg?itok=z0cIbTsr)
– How collaboration can help
UNU-WIDER has worked for several years in collaboration with sub-Saharan African revenue authorities to facilitate the analysis of digital tax data. During a visit to Kampala, Uganda this year, we asked our colleagues how this collaboration has been useful to them. How do they see their role going...
Working Paper
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– The case study of a foreign-owned mining operation in Tanzania
Based on a case study of an anonymous mining company in Tanzania, this study assesses the implementation of the local content (LC) regulations and guidelines in the country. The analysis focused on the key LC aspects of the direct workforce (employment and training), procurement of goods and...
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In Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, and elsewhere, UNU-WIDER is on the ground to support national development plans, collect and create data for economic analysis and national and international policy processes, and build the capacity of government officials to develop national economies...
Report
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This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania Mainland. It describes the different tax–benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and the database on which the model runs. It concludes with a validation of TAZMOD results...
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– Evidence from an international research conference
This 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 INTPA) under its capacity as the leading entity of...
Working Paper
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We study the effectiveness of social protection benefits in reducing income and consumption poverty in five sub-Saharan African countries—Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia—in normal times and times of widespread economic crisis. Using tax–benefit microsimulation models with...
Working Paper
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– Empirical evidence
This paper examines trends and determinants of gross domestic savings in Tanzania using data for the period 1990–2020. The autoregressive distributed lag approach is employed to empirically analyse the short-run and long-run relationships. There has been a fairly stable increase in the domestic...
Working Paper
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In a bid to realize its development aspirations, Tanzania has made concerted efforts to increase public investment, particularly in the last decade. A significant proportion of these investments are financed by contracting debt, manifested by the rapid accumulation of public debt, especially...
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Across sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries there are striking differences in citizen willingness to pay taxes. For example, in Mali, Senegal, and Ghana, around half of those surveyed ‘strongly agreed’ that the government has the right to make people pay taxes, but in Cote d'Ivoire this figure is...
Journal Article
– A decomposition approach
Redistributive systems in Africa are still in their infancy but are expanding in order to finance increasing public spending. This study aims at characterising the redistributive potential of six African countries: Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa.These countries show...
Working Paper
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Expansion of social protection reach among workers in the large informal economy represents a persisting and thorny challenge in the development context. In Mainland Tanzania, several domestically led policy reforms have been introduced to increasingly expand social protection for informal workers...
Working Paper
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– Exploring past policy trajectories and simulating future paths
Tanzania has expanded its social protection framework significantly over the past decade, but the country continues to grapple with important gender inequalities. This paper examines, first, the evolution and effects of Tanzania’s social protection policies since the 2000s, from the perspective of...
Report
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View the latest TAZMOD country report here. This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania. It describes the different tax–benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and the database on which the model runs. It concludes...
Working Paper
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Tanzania has experienced relatively strong and stable economic growth accompanied by social stability over the past two decades. The country is also pursuing an ambitious development plan with significant employment objectives. For development to be fully inclusive, specific attention must be paid...
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Just over seven months ago the United Nations convened its 26th Climate Change Conference (COP-26) in Glasgow, with the world nervously emerging from the pandemic. Even before that, energy prices were already ticking up — a trend that accelerated when Russia invaded Ukraine. The global response to...
Working Paper
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There has been much discussion on climate change and its adverse effects on agriculture, including excessive loss of food production. In regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, where agriculture is the major source of household livelihoods, shocks in weather patterns affect farmers’ expectations of farm...
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The first of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms, everywhere. The monumental task — a long-time dream of humanity — is followed by 16 more goals under the 2030 Agenda. Though they are all interlinked, to even contemplate their achievement requires a deep well...
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Why is it that in some countries the parents of a bride pay dowry, whereas in some others the groom has to pay for the bride? What is the impact of different traditions on women’s lives? Marriage payments, as well as dowry or bride price, are still in use in 75% of countries globally. Bride price...
Journal Article
This study analyses the impacts of indirect tax benefits policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8. The simulations model two indirect tax reforms involving changes to the excise duty and value‐added tax rates on...
Working Paper
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– Driving for gender-inclusive development?
In July 2020, the United Republic of Tanzania gained the status of a lower-middle-income country. This came after two decades of significant social policy reforms and transformations in the country’s economic structures. This paper explores social policy trajectories in Mainland Tanzania with a...
Working Paper
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– Why low capacity, discursive legitimacy, and twilight authority matter
Tanzania received significant global attention for its COVID-19 response during the first year of the pandemic. It did not share pandemic statistics, require masks, implement lockdowns, or close borders; it questioned testing and vaccine efficacy; and it emphasized traditional medicines as a cure...
Working Paper
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– Examining policy developments and opportunities through a gender lens
Tanzania has undertaken important health sector reforms in the new millennium, and the most recent Health Sector Strategic Plan (2021–26) lays out ambitious targets to achieve universal health coverage. Yet, women in Tanzania continue to face significant barriers in accessing healthcare and the...
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– And how to deal with them
Children from poorer families in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda face a double disadvantage in their opportunity to access learning: not only is the overall quality of education low in these countries, but they also attend relatively poorer-quality schools. This column reports new evidence on how...
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Millions of Africans lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but state social security systems were of little help to people who lost their income.This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, UNU...
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– Taxation in developing countries can be improved through collaboration
Finland aims to raise the amount of its development assistance to 0.7% of GDP, and this goal has good grounds. But how can we make sure that the countries receiving the donor funding will not stay dependent on the external aid for a long time?Just like rich countries, in the long run developing...
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The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that African tax and social-benefit systems are currently ill-equipped to protect households from sudden income losses. Meaningful progress will require policymakers to reduce the size of the informal sector and improve the design and financing of social-protection...
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– How five African countries fared
The number of people living in poverty around the world is estimated to have increased by half a billion people due to the COVID-19 crisis. The African continent has suffered at least US$100 billion in economic costs in 2020, measured by the reduction in trade revenues and financial flows due to the...
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Are there enough tax payers to generate the revenue needed by governments to reduce poverty? How adequate are the social security arrangements that already exist? Anyone who has started to probe these issues will know that the answers to such questions can be hard to pin down. This is why the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Dead end or stepping-stone?
Despite rapid economic growth in recent decades, informality remains a persistent phenomenon in the labor markets of many low- and middle-income countries. A key issue in this regard concerns the extent to which informality itself is a persistent state. Using panel data from Ghana, South Africa...
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– Evidence from risk-based tax examinations
Risk-based approaches are becoming commonplace for tax authorities as a tool for enforcement. Improvements in technology, technological adoption and in some cases machine learning, hold great promise for finding the taxpayers who are most likely to avoid taxes, thus improving the detection of non...
Working Paper
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– A microsimulation analysis on selected African countries
Although the effect of fiscal drag is well studied in the industrialized world, empirical evidence from developing economies remains limited. Against this backdrop, this study aims to explore the effect of fiscal drag on income distribution and work incentives. To this end, the study employs...
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The next decade is a make-or-break for the world’s most vulnerable countries. To tackle the unprecedented confluence of COVID-19, climate, and economic crises, new solutions are desperately needed. Scientific research is one key for finding long-lasting solutions. Least developed countries (LDCs)...
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Tanzania, similar to most sub-Saharan countries, reported its first COVID-19 cases in March 2020. While GDP estimates suggest that the economy was less hard hit than in other African countries, some sectors have nevertheless experienced negative growth. Even with contained GDP contractions in 2020...
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In summer 2020 the SOUTHMOD team set out, with partners, to analyse the impact of government policies on protecting households from getting poorer and avoiding societies from becoming more unequal. Now we are releasing a cross-country comparative study that analyses the distributional effects of the...
Working Paper
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– A reflection of practices, policies, and legislation
This paper assesses the participation of female traders, safety factors, and existing policies and legislation in the informal sector in Tanzania. Primary data were obtained from 11 in-depth interviews, 10 focused group discussions, and 236 structured questionnaires. The primary data were...
Working Paper
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In this paper, we investigate the working conditions of the young women working as assistants in the food vending sector in Tanzania using interviews and focus group discussions which are supplemented with quantitative survey. Data were collected in the municipalities of Nyamagana and Ilemela in...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Tanzania
While technical assistance and increased use of ICT in the area of tax administration have been regarded to hold considerable promise for greater revenue collection, the evidence on how these activities work in the real-world circumstances of developing countries is scant. The paper attempts to fill...
Working Paper
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This paper analyses the distributional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related tax-benefit measures in 2020 in a cross-country comparative perspective for five African countries: Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. We first estimate the impact of the crisis on disposable incomes...
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Tanzania is, together with Kenya and Uganda, one of the founding members states of the East African Community (EAC), a regional intergovernmental organization which nowadays consists of six partner states in the region. Since the revival of the new EAC in 2000, EAC Customs Union (EAC-CU) in 2005...
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– What difference do they make?
The socioeconomic fallout from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore discussions on domestic resource mobilization (hereafter DRM). Raising domestic taxes has monopolized policy attention, however, given the attendant and ensuing needs in developing countries, raising savings rates...
Working Paper
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– Imputing employment income in Tanzania and Zambia
The quality of data on employment income is explored using Tanzanian and Zambian household survey datasets. The extent of missing and implausible income data is assessed and four different methods are applied to impute missing or implausible values. The four imputation methods are also applied to...
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At the UNU-WIDER offices here in Helsinki, Finland, the summer holidays are almost upon us. Looking at the list of new UNU-WIDER publications, it is easy to see how much we accomplished this past year, despite the many constraints faced. By my latest count, we have 25 new working papers and 12 new...
Working Paper
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This study examines the interaction between formalization of the artisanal and small-scale mining subsector and the regulation of negative environmental impacts in Tanzania. Formalization generally seeks to move the artisanal and small-scale mining subsector to legal status. Using documents, reviews...
Working Paper
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Effectiveness of strategic environmental assessment in promoting sustainable development in Tanzania
This paper examines the extent to which strategic environmental assessment (SEA) is implemented in Tanzania and whether its implementation is in line with generally practised procedures/criteria. Out of 17 completed SEA, eight cases were purposively selected and assessed by applying an analytical...
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Researchers and policymakers have long asked whether rural households in Africa diversify their income to spread risk or by seizing opportunities to increase their earning potential. Long-term research in Tanzania shows that diversification is more often a choice rather than a necessity, with the...
Working Paper
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This paper uses the latest Tanzania labour force survey—the Integrated Labour Force Survey—and a censored bivariate probit model to analyse gender differences in labour force participation and gender bias in formal wage employment in urban Tanzania. Our findings indicate that, compared to men, women...
Working Paper
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Although Tanzania has made notable progress in enhancing access to financial services, the gender gap in financial inclusion persists. This paper examines gender disparities in financial inclusion in Tanzania using descriptive and regression analyses. While the advent of mobile phone money services...
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Informality is a pervasive phenomenon in the labour markets of developing countries. Two billion workers, representing 61.2 per cent of the world’s employed population, are in informal employment. Emerging and developing countries account for more than 93 per cent of total global informal employment...
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Diversifying income sources is an important livelihood strategy for households in low-income countries. Having several sources of income helps in increasing total income, and in spreading the risks. New findings on the benefits of income diversification from Tanzanian households can inform policy...
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The private sector and enterprises have a key role to play in the development of the Tanzanian economy. This Policy Brief provides insights and solutions that could offer business sectors the vital policy support that they need to develop and grow. Linkages with large firms provide a possibility for...
Working Paper
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– Application of a structural gravity model
By measuring the effects of forming and joining a regional integration bloc using an augmented structural gravity model, this paper finds that the East African Community (EAC) and EAC Customs Union have significantly enhanced Tanzanian trade into EAC markets. Kenya has continued to be the main...
Working Paper
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– Facilitating inclusion, organization, and rights for street vendors
In spite of having some intensive national strategies to address poverty, Tanzania lacks a coherent national strategy to ensure sustainable livelihoods for those working in its informal economy, of which street vending is an important sector. Based on qualitative, in-depth data collected through...
Report
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View the latest TAZMOD country report here. This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania. This work was carried out by University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the project partners in the scope of the SOUTHMOD project. The results presented in this report are...
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Among the many things said about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is the description by the President of the UN General Assembly’s 70th session, Mogens Lykketoft, that the SDGs represented ‘an unprecedented statistical challenge’. In addition to the 17 goals, there are 169 targets and 232...
Working Paper
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This paper explores the distributional impact of lowering the value-added tax rate for standard-rated items in Tanzania Mainland. Using a static tax-benefit microsimulation model—TAZMOD—which is underpinned by data derived from the Household Budget Survey 2017/18, reductions in value-added taxes...
Working Paper
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This study sought to examine the main constraints to manufacturing export competitiveness in Tanzania. Using panel data for the period 1997–2018, the study established that supply-side factors dominate demand-side factors in explaining manufacturing export competitiveness. Specifically, the results...
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On 17 February 2021 the Groningen Growth and Development Centre (GGDC) and UNU-WIDER Economic Transformation Database (ETD) will be launched. The new database provides crucial information on changes in the economic structure of economies across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Preliminary findings...
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Economics researcher Aimable Nsabimana shares the relevance and inspiration behind his recent work with UNU-WIDER on climate change and human development in Tanzania. How can research contribute to the wellbeing in Africa? In 2019, I spent some months at UNU-WIDER in Helsinki as a Visiting Scholar...
Working Paper
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What drives livelihood diversification among predominantly rural households in developing countries and how can welfare-enhancing patterns be established and sustained in the long run? A large literature has focused on whether income diversification is a means of survival or a means of accumulation...
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Technological catch-up is bringing new asynchronies to development pathways. What does this mean for employment, globalization, and inequality? A chapter in the volume The Developer’s Dilemma, which traces trends of structural transformation, offers a framework for understanding the emerging global...
– Global versus regional value chains
As COVID-19 ravages international trade and production, policy-makers are shifting their sights from global value chains (GVCs) to regional value chains (RVCs) as pathways to industrialization. This blog presents evidence from the textiles and apparel sector in Tanzania, which shows that while GVCs...
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– How can natural resources support inclusive growth in Africa
For a growing number of countries in Africa the discovery of natural resources is a great opportunity, but one accompanied by considerable risks. There is an extensive literature linking natural resource dependence to poor economic performance. One cause is that resource-abundant economies tend to...
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This paper examines the impact of the government input subsidy—the National Agriculture Input Voucher—on farmers’ production and welfare in Tanzania as well as the factors that influence agricultural production in the country. The analysis is based on the Living Standards Measurement Study...
Working Paper
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– Evolving trends during the transition to a low carbon future
The first objective of this paper is to update earlier assessments of mineral dependence in lower-income countries. In 2018, the mining of metals and coal continued to be an important contributor to the economies of several low- and middle-income countries. As in our previous calculations of the...
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– Transnational growth corridors as a solution
Comprehensive harmonization is crucial to eliminate inefficiencies that hamper free movement of goods and services in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. Territorial collaboration between metropolitan clusters and rural areas connected by transport corridors is a potential key...
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The implementation of a Single Customs Territory by East African Community countries is intended to ease the movement of goods across borders by cutting costs and time through harmonization and simplification of customs documents, removal of burdensome customs procedures, and automation of customs...
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– The case of Tanzania
Rising public debt in sub-Saharan Africa remains a matter of concern. We provide an analysis of public debt and debt sustainability in Tanzania, focusing on external debt. Though current and previous analyses using the IMF-World Bank debt sustainability framework indicate low risk of public external...
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This paper uses three waves of Tanzanian National Panel Surveys (2008/09, 2010/11, and 2012/13) to construct a panel from 3,676 households that appear in at least two waves to explore the effect of income diversification on household welfare measured in terms of food consumption. The analysis...
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Special economic zones (SEZ) in Africa are generally regarded as underperforming relative to their peers in the rest of the world. To explain this underperformance and to support success in the future it is important to analyse the key features and what is lacking in the design of African special...
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– Gender and innovation
Innovation generally takes place in male-dominated industries. A gender gap might therefore exist. This study used data from the 2015 Tanzania Firm-Level Skills Survey to investigate the gender innovation gap between female-owned enterprises and male-owned enterprises. A non-linear Blinder–Oaxaca...
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– Can linkages with large firms spur the growth of SMEs in Tanzania?
A recent strand of literature on small and medium enterprise (SME) development identifies linkages with large firms as some of the enablers of development and competitiveness. However, there is a dearth of empirical studies on the topic. In this study, we assess the extent and determinants of...
– The framing of social protection policies in Tanzania
Until 2010s, social protection was not high on the political agenda in Tanzania. Yet in 2012, the government approved the implementation of a nationwide conditional cash transfer programme. What led the government to commit to a policy area that was otherwise of low priority? The development of the...
Working Paper
pdf
With recent changes in the global economy, policy makers are increasingly turning from global value chains to regional and national value chains as drivers of structural transformation in the global South. This paper examines economic and social upgrading in the Tanzanian textile and apparel sectors...
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As COVID-19 slows in developed countries, the virus’s spread is speeding up in the developing world. Three-quarters of new cases detected each day are now in developing countries. And as the pandemic spreads, governments face juggling the health consequences with economic ones as this shifts to...
Working Paper
pdf
– Barriers to entry and the role of African multinational corporations
The growth of African multinational companies in Southern and East Africa in recent decades brings with it a great opportunity for development of productive capacity in the region and greater regional integration. This study identifies three emerging multinationals in the region—Trade Kings (from...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper reviews comparative approaches to key issues in economic regulation in four countries of the Southern African Development Community, and how this has been reflected in outcomes in terms of competition, prices, access, and innovation in telecommunications services. In this paper...
Working Paper
pdf
Low levels of broadband penetration combined with poor quality of services present a challenge to growth and development in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). This paper performs a comparative analysis of the competitive dynamics of telecommunications markets in four SADC countries...
Working Paper
pdf
The provision of a universal old age pension is increasingly recognized as an important instrument for strengthening and extending social protection. A growing number of emerging economies, including East African countries, are introducing universal old age pensions to guarantee at least a basic...
Working Paper
pdf
– The cases of Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe
The objective of this research is to assess the extent to which export processing zones in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in their implementation and operations. We focused on four Sustainable Development Goals—gender equality, decent work...
Working Paper
pdf
– Is success influenced by design attributes?
Special economic zones (SEZs) in Africa are generally regarded as underperforming relative to their peers in the rest of the world. This study focuses on the design features of the SEZ in Africa that may help explain this underperformance. Literature was reviewed to identify the key design...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Tanzania
In this paper, we examine the relationship between childhood exposure to adverse weather shocks and nutritional and health outcomes of children in Tanzania. Using household panel data matched with spatially disaggregated data on weather shocks, we exploit the plausibly exogenous variations in the...
Background Note
pdf
– The case of Kenya
The COVID-19 pandemic has now spread to over 180 countries, including several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.1 Kenya reported its first COVID-19 case on 13 March 2020. By 31 March the number of confirmed cases had risen to 59, with over 70 per cent of infections in Nairobi. As at 22 April 2020, the...
Blog
– Working together to achieve the SDGs
'It was great to have enough time to discuss each paper. I received useful and frank feedback. The topics are relevant for everyone. I noticed a healthy gender balance.' These were some of the comments expressed at our research review workshop in Dar es Salaam in February, hosted by our partner...
Blog
Tony Addison is the first in his family not to become a miner. He has decades of experience in development economics and economic reform in developing countries. It was a rainy day in London at the turn of the 1980s. Twenty-year-old Tony Addison had been wandering around the streets when he found...
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Over the past three decades, there has been notable progress on certain key dimensions of gender equality. Almost universally the gender gap in education has been narrowed and commitments to secure equal access to employment have advanced. However, the rate of progress towards gender equality in...
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– Natural Resources and Industry in Africa
For a growing number of countries in Africa the discovery and exploitation of natural resources is a great opportunity, but one accompanied by considerable risks. Countries dependent on oil, gas, and mining have tended to have weaker long-run growth, higher rates of poverty, and greater income...
Working Paper
pdf
– A feasibility study
This working paper explores the feasibility of developing a tax and benefit microsimulation model in Zanzibar using the EUROMOD microsimulation software. We review Zanzibar’s tax and benefit arrangements and the potential household survey dataset that would underpin the model, and we conclude that...
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– Reducing the impact of global oil prices
Analysis of World Bank data ranging from 1990–2017 indicates that increases in global oil prices would have negative effects on the economic growth of SADC, especially Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Mauritius. Given the high reliance of Southern African countries on crude oil imports, barrel...
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– Actors, institutions and dynamics
Since the mid-1990s, there has been in Africa something of a ‘quiet revolution’ in poverty reduction strategies with the proliferation of social assistance programmes that entail cash transfers to the poor. The past two decades have also been characterized by a series of important political...
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There is an increasing interest in the analysis of economic inequalities in least developed countries. This is not only the result of a general social preference for equality, but also the consequence of a growing sense that highly unequal societies may distort the functioning of a country...
Working Paper
pdf
– Dead end or steppingstone?
Despite rapid economic growth in recent decades, informality remains a persistent phenomenon in the labour markets of many low- and middle-income countries. A key issue in this regard concerns the extent to which informality itself is a persistent state. Using panel data from Ghana, South Africa...
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Social protection has attracted increasing interest in developing countries in recent decades and policies have been initiated in all developing regions. When countries build up their social protection systems, they need reliable information and tools on how the systems should be designed. They also...
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– Global trends and data challenges
Inequality—both vertical (between individuals and households) and horizontal (between groups)—is a core concern in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, despite considerable attention to horizontal inequality in both research and policy, there are notable gaps and weaknesses in our...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A 25-Year Perspective
Part of Journal Special Issue
Horizontal inequality in the Global South
Working Paper
pdf
We examine the extent to which two of Africa’s leading gold mining economies, Ghana and Tanzania, have adopted transformative local procurement policies to enhance backward linkages from the minerals sector. We assess the impact that evolving legislation in the gold industry has had on...
Working Paper
pdf
Access to mobile phone has increased substantially over the last decade in sub-Saharan Africa. The evidence suggests that increased use of mobile phones in the region has upgraded the market prices received by producers for their cash crops, but so far there is limited knowledge on labour market...
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View the latest TAZMOD country report here. This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania. This work was carried out by University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the project partners in the scope of the SOUTHMOD project. The results presented in this report are...
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– Reflections on my first six months as Director
My first six months as Director of UNU-WIDER have been busy, enlightening, and rewarding. We’ve launched a new work programme, with flagship projects focused on a cohesive research base addressing key SDGs; I’ve also worked on fostering partnerships to cement the Institute’s place as a valuable...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The case of four African countries
Part of Journal Special Issue
Inequalities in the least developed countries
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Social protection systems in Africa are still in their infancy. As countries develop their systems, it is crucial to look at how existing tax-benefit programmes affect poverty and inequality and how countries can learn from each other’s systems.Microsimulation models can be used to study existing...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Journal Special Issue
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Social protection has attracted increasing interest in developing countries in recent decades and policies have been initiated in all developing regions. Cash transfer policies are already in place in many African countries, but their coverage is still limited, although it is expanding. Many of the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The Case of Social Benefits in Tanzania
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Simulating Universal Pensions in Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Working Paper
pdf
This paper investigates whether Southern African Development Community countries that are vulnerable to changes in oil prices could instead substitute oil and petroleum products with biofuels and gas from within the region. A pooled mean group estimator was used to determine the impact of oil prices...
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– 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, and collect revenues efficiently, is a cornerstone of state formation and survival. Secondly, greater fiscal capacity implies greater access of the...
Working Paper
pdf
– An application of TAZMOD
This paper analyses the impacts of indirect tax policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8. The simulations model two indirect tax reforms involving changes to the excise duty and value-added tax rates on alcoholic...
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At the end of last year, I filmed a lecture that will be part of a massive open online course (MOOC) on industrialization in Africa. The course is based on a joint research project between the Brookings Institution and UNU-WIDER called Jobs, poverty and structural change in Africa. The topic of the...
Working Paper
pdf
– The impact of tax-benefit systems in Africa
Redistributive systems in Africa are still in their infancy but are constantly expanding in order to finance increasing public spending. This paper aims at characterizing the redistributive potential of six African countries: Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and South Africa.These...
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– UNU-WIDER provides open access to a wealth of information
The question ‘why is there so little industrialization in Africa?’ has been a key focus of UNU-WIDER researchers and research partners for the last decade. Many Asian economies started their industrialization processes from conditions similar to those that African countries are experiencing today...
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This week I attended the 28th Africa Industrialization Day at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Even sympathetic readers may reasonably ask, why hold another African Industrialization Day at all? The short answer is Africa needs structural change to grow, to create jobs, and to reduce...
Working Paper
pdf
– Country study—Tanzania
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 sets out the scale of the gas, and the array of...
Working Paper
pdf
In this paper we study the impact of tenure security on rural to urban migration of household members over the age of 15. Using three waves of the Tanzanian National Panel Survey (NPS) data, we show that tenure security is associated with lower probability of migration in rural Tanzania. This result...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper assesses the effects of public policies on income taxes and benefits in six African countries. The comparative analysis focuses on the distribution and composition of incomes and assesses the effect of these policies on inequality and poverty. The results are based on newly developed...
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The tax-benefit microsimulation model developed for Mozambique, MOZMOD, has proved to be valuable in analysing the impacts and budget implications of a new policy proposal in Mozambique. The importance of the tool has also been recognized in the government. Tax-benefit microsimulation helps to...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A gender perspective
Part of Journal Special Issue
Female Autonomy and Women’s Welfare
The collection of articles in this symposium speaks to the issue of female autonomy and women's welfare within households, making use of rich data from a variety of developing countries including Brazil, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, India, Indonesia, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zambia.
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– (of Colpensiones, Colombia’s public pension and social security administrator) – Juan Villa
Four years ago, in 2014, Juan Villa spent three months at UNU-WIDER in our PhD Fellowship Programme. I spoke to him on a sunny September afternoon while he was back in Helsinki for the Think development - Think WIDER conference about his journey since his studies, and about what’s next. Juan grew up...
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From the book:
Industries without Smokestacks
Working Paper
pdf
– How can policies best create benefits for Tanzania?
Tanzania is rich with natural resources, which have significant potential to contribute to the country’s economic development. Several laws recently passed in Tanzania are dedicated to establishing linkages between foreign firms in natural resource extraction and the local economy. This paper...
Working Paper
pdf
The construction sector is a key enabler for social and economic development worldwide. In Tanzania, the sector growth rate is well above the general economy and has maintained positive growth in response to the country’s investments in commercial and residential buildings and infrastructure...
Working Paper
pdf
– A flexible value-added model with Tanzanian school switchers
This paper estimates a private school learning premium in Tanzania by implementing a flexible value-added model with unique administrative data on exam scores. The dataset covers 635,000 secondary school students with information on both their primary and lower secondary school exam records...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Tanzania
Do intergovernmental transfers reduce revenues collected by local government authorities (LGAs)? There is already a well-established body of literature in public finance, which argues that intergovernmental grants “crowd out” local revenues. Most existing studies, however, explore the fiscal...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of social benefits in Tanzania
A well functioning system of public service delivery requires the definition and measurement of eligibility for services to be determined in a transparent and non-discretionary manner. This paper uses the case of the Productive Social Safety Net in mainland Tanzania to explore factors that hinder...
Blog
– What can be done?
In the second part of this blog, Alan R. Roe discusses what is known about the informational failures that pose challenges for governments in projecting revenues from extractive industries. Read the first part here. Important new light has been thrown on information gaps faced by governments in...
Blog
– Information asymmetries and other disadvantages of host governments
In the first part of this blog, Alan R. Roe writes about the difficulties governments face in predicting revenues from extractive industries. Read part two here. Countries endowed with rich mineral or oil and gas resources have many competing uses for the revenues that arise from the production of...
Working Paper
pdf
– Simulating universal pensions in Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa
We use four novel, cross-country comparable tax-benefit microsimulation models for Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa to evaluate ex ante the expansion of a universal old-age pension in a static setting. Universal pensions would significantly reduce poverty and inequality in settings in...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from a randomized survey experiment in Tanzania
Does self-serving elite behaviour make citizens more politically active? This paper presents the results of a randomized field experiment where voters in Tanzania were given information about elite use of tax havens. Information provided in a neutral form had no effect on voting intentions...
Working Paper
pdf
In this study, we assess formal education as a causal determinant of women’s malaria preventive behaviour, as well as children’s risk of malaria infection. For identification, we rely on exogenous variation in educational attainment generated by educational reforms during the 1970s. We use data from...
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View the latest TAZMOD country report here. This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania. This work was carried out by University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the project partners in the scope of the SOUTHMOD project. The results presented in this report are...
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The importance of reducing poverty is universally acknowledged, and represents an important part of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, the appropriate measurement of poverty and wellbeing remains complex and controversial. A UNU-WIDER study addresses means to significantly lower the...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of four African countries
This paper investigates the levels and evolution of poverty in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe using the decomposability properties of poverty measures based on a counting approach. We compare poverty measures such as the Alkire and Foster index with alternative poverty indices that are...
Working Paper
pdf
– On the cultural origins of violence against women
We study the roots of violence against women, and propose that it partly originates in cultural norms that derive from (a) characteristics of the traditional subsistence problem in different societies, and (b) differences in the sexual division of labor for solving that problem in each society. We...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper explores the link between entrepreneurship and child human capital development. We specifically examine how operating a non-farm enterprise (NFE) as opposed to working in agriculture relates to child labour and schooling outcomes. Accounting for time-invariant unobservable characteristics...
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Over the past decade significant hydrocarbon discoveries have been made across East Africa. Unsurprisingly, the respective governments countries have been excited about these discoveries, expecting revenue and local economic opportunities to follow suit. However, concerns about the macroeconomic...
Working Paper
pdf
– Structural change or just big numbers?
This paper extends UNU-WIDER Working Paper 2016/79, which examined the economic situation in Tanzania during the resurgence of gold and diamond production after 1999, with the situation that emerged as the country began to exploit its very large resources of natural gas mainly from the Indian Ocean...
Working Paper
pdf
We use household survey data to investigate the effects of formal, private property rights to agricultural land on agricultural investment, land valuation and access to credit in Tanzania. Results show that while there are no detectable effects of formal, private land property rights (written...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Macroeconomic Perspectives on Aid
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Measuring quality of care
Working Paper
pdf
Objective: To analyse factors affecting variations in the observed quality of antenatal and sick-child care in primary-care facilities in seven African countries. Methods: We pooled nationally representative data from service provision assessment surveys of health facilities in Kenya, Malawi...
Working Paper
pdf
– A literature review and new evidence
Many adolescent girls in low-income countries face the challenge of early pregnancy and lifelong dependence upon family and partners. In this paper, we review the literature on field interventions aimed at reducing early pregnancies in low-income countries and report from a randomized control trial...
Working Paper
pdf
– Experimental evidence from Tanzania
This paper studies whether increasing the wife’s bargaining power results in couples allocating more resources to their child, and, if so, what the underlying mechanisms for this are. We conduct a novel between-subject lab experiment in Tanzania, in which we vary the relative bargaining power...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– General lessons and bilateral agreements of Norway
Part of Journal Special Issue
UNU-WIDER Special Symposium on Aid, Environment and Climate Change
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View the latest TAZMOD country report here. This report documents TAZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Tanzania. This work was carried out by University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the project partners in the scope of the SOUTHMOD project. The results presented in this report are...
Working Paper
pdf
– The possibilities and the realities
The paper discusses the practical possibilities of achieving increased downstream processing and the policies that are commonly used for this purpose. It reviews the reasons why forward vertical integration is not always an optimal choice for extractive industry companies. It finds little support...
Blog
– An interview with Jukka Pirttilä
The University of Tampere is participating in an international project in which a microsimulation model is being drafted for the evaluation of the price effects of taxation and the transfer of income in developing countries. ‘The model helps in the planning of the overall picture. It shows the...
Working Paper
pdf
– A gender perspective
This paper examines whether the presence of refugees alters the intra-household allocation of tasks across genders in the hosting population. Using panel data (pre- and post-refugee inflow) from Kagera, a rural region of Tanzania, we find that the refugee shock led to women being less likely to...
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– Success and failure in the extractive sector
A central difficulty for extractive activity is that benefits accrue at the national level but disruptions are highly localized. Companies recognise that these imbalances need to be addressed and adopt active programmes to improve local benefits. These programmes have had mixed past success, partly...
Working Paper
pdf
A major challenge for almost all extractives activity is that benefits accrue predominantly at the national level while disruptions are invariably highly localized close to the resource. Recently, extractives companies have intensified efforts to correct this imbalance. The aim of this paper is to...
Working Paper
pdf
Despite Tanzania’s rapid recent growth, the vast majority of employment creation has been in informal services. This paper addresses the role that different subsectors of formal and informal services have played in Tanzania’s growth. It finds that subsectors such as trade services contribute...
Blog
Researchers, policy makers, and representatives of international institutions recently gathered in Dar es Salaam to discuss prospects for a transformation of Tanzania’s economy. The country has experienced significant growth over the past two decades, but this growth has not been inclusive, and...
Research Brief
pdf
Climate change risks for run-off and irrigation demand vary significantly across South Africa, with some regions expected to experience increased drying and others flooding Smaller impacts on water resources by 2050 are expected if global emissions are mitigated Even under strong mitigation policies...
Blog
There has been a serious deficit of good news in Mozambique for quite some time. The recent release of Mozambique’s Fourth Poverty Assessment, based on a large nationally representative household survey conducted in 2014-15, provides a welcome shift. The report finds that, relative to the prior...
Working Paper
pdf
In the early 2000s, there was low elite commitment to social protection in Tanzania. Yet, in 2012, the government officially launched a countrywide social safety net programme, and a year later it announced the introduction of an old age pension. In this article, I explore the reasons for this...
Working Paper
pdf
Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have been successfully used as an industrial policy tool in many countries. Efforts to create SEZs in Tanzania began in 2002, and were stepped up through the establishment of the Export Processing Zone Authority (EPZA) in 2006. A number of state-run zones are now in...
Working Paper
pdf
– A 20-year perspective
This study uses five series of demographic and health surveys to answer the question: ‘Is horizontal inequality in education and wealth increasing or decreasing in the 20-year interval between 1991 and 2010?’. Horizontal inequality in education attainment has been moving in waves; however, there was...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Tanzania
Do intergovernmental transfers reduce revenues collected by local government authorities (LGAs) There is already a well-established body of literature in public finance, which argues that intergovernmental grants ‘crowd out’ local revenues. Most existing studies, however, explore the fiscal...
![](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/blog-roger-povgroafrica-sept2016.jpg?itok=UWC05YDo)
The literature on Africa’s development abounds in big theories — structural transformation, pro-poor growth, inclusive growth, among others. ‘Growth miracles’ (with or without a question mark) are sought and often proclaimed. The World Bank has even pondered whether Africa can overcome its ongoing...
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There has been great excitement in recent years about the huge oil and gas finds, offshore and onshore, in a number of lower- and lower-middle-income countries such as Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and, more recently, Kenya. The scale of the potential reserves, future production levels and government...
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Women in most parts of the developing world are under-represented in the workplace and poorly paid. One reason for this is the gender gap in education – women tend to be less schooled than men. Two countries that have made progress in getting girls into schools are Bangladesh and Uganda. However...
Working Paper
pdf
– The opportunities and the risks
This paper examines the possible implications for the financial systems of low-income African economies and in particular Tanzania of their stated aspiration to achieve middle-income status. In doing so it finds little evidence that the mere increase of gross domestic product per capita will lead...
Blog
The recovery and acceleration of economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa since about 1995 has been widely recognised. But less is known about the extent to which this growth has led to improvements in welfare and poverty reduction in particular. In our recently published, open-access book, we attempt...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– An Integrated Environmental and Economic Assessment for Tanzania
This paper jointly evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and household poverty. Results indicate that there are...
Working Paper
pdf
– From mining to oil and gas
This paper compares and contrasts the economic situation in Tanzania during the resurgence of gold and diamond production after 1999, with the situation that is now emerging as the country begins to exploit very large resources of natural gas mainly from the Indian Ocean. The mining boom after 1999...
Working Paper
pdf
We contribute to the literature on trends in living standards in Tanzania by analysing child welfare using two multi-dimensional approaches, first-order dominance (FOD) and Alkire-Foster (AF). Between 1991/92 and 2010, remarkably similar area rankings emerge that suggest a widening gap between the...
Blog
– A reality check
Several countries in Africa – including Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Uganda - have recently discovered large oil and gas or other mineral resources. Other African countries such as Angola, Botswana, and Nigeria have been exploiting very large extractive wealth for many years. Natural...
Blog
To Stockholm, for Sida’s Development Talks on the theme ‘Africa rising? Poverty and growth in sub-Saharan Africa’. Finn Tarp and Andy McKay spoke about their new UNU-WIDER book, co-edited with Channing Arndt, entitled Growth and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa—the book is on full open access...
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– Evidence from a 16 country study
While the recovery and acceleration of economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) since about 1995 has been widely recognized, much less is known about the extent to which this growth has been translated into improvements in welfare for the population in general and poverty reduction in particular...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Blog
– Who benefits?
Manufacturing production in both developed and developing economies tends to be highly geographically concentrated in cities and industrial clusters. Firms are drawn together for a variety of reasons, mostly motivated by the desire to reduce the costs of transporting goods, people, and ideas. In...
Blog
– Some new thinking for Africa Industrialization Day
This Friday, November 20 marks yet another “Africa Industrialization Day” by the United Nations. There have now been 25 such events, and they seem to have come and gone with relatively little notice. This year may be different: Africa’s failure to industrialize has come to the attention of a growing...
Working Paper
pdf
– Performance, prospects, and public policy
Tanzania ranks among the leading stars of the ‘African growth miracle’, but a sector that has been largely absent from the Tanzania success story is industry. Although growth of manufacturing has outpaced economic growth over the past decade, relative to international norms and its ambitious plans...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa
Working Paper
pdf
– A feasibility study
This paper presents the findings from a feasibility study on the potential for developing a static tax-benefit microsimulation model for Tanzania. The paper provides an account of the current tax-benefit system in Tanzania and introduces the survey dataset which could function as the underpinning...
Working Paper
pdf
– Measuring real inequality using survey data from developing countries
This paper investigates how two effects drive wedges between nominal and real inequality estimates. The effects are caused by (i) differences in the composition of consumption over the income distribution coupled with differential inflation of consumption items; and (ii) quantity discounting effects...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Aid, Social Policy and Development
Working Paper
pdf
– A synthetic control approach
I examine impacts of general budget support in 12 countries using the synthetic control approach. First, I analyse changes in government expenditures on health before and after the introduction of budget support. Second, I look at neonatal mortality (a presumed proxy for improvements in health...
Working Paper
pdf
– An application to Tanzania
We develop a poverty decomposition method that is based on a consumption regression model. Because this method uses an integral of the partial derivatives of a poverty measure with respect to time, the resulting poverty decomposition satisfies time-reversion consistency and sub-period additivity...
Blog
Malawi’s farm input subsidy benefits the poor and can be part of a viable national development strategy. Agriculture is Malawi’s main economic sector. It generates one-third of GDP, half of total export earnings and two-thirds of employment. The farm input subsidy programme is a prime example of a...
Blog
– The Role for Aid in Africa
Aid’s future, its history, and its impact were the topics of a policy workshop held by UNU-WIDER in co-operation with the Embassy of Denmark in Dar es Salaam on 8 June. The Dar symposium brought together a range of international and local participants, including donors and policy makers, and was...
Blog
And so we come to the summer Angle. We have just passed the longest day (midsummer) in Helsinki, with 19 or so hours of daylight. The seagulls nesting near the UNU-WIDER office have hatched their chicks, and everyone is looking forward to the summer holiday month of July. Here at UNU-WIDER we are in...
Working Paper
pdf
After many years of relatively slow growth, Tanzania’s national accounts data report accelerated aggregate growth since around 2000. Our analysis shows that there has been somewhat slower growth in private consumption and in sectors such as agriculture in which most of the poor work and live. The...
Book Chapter
– Prospecting a Mineralized Future
From the book:
African Youth and the Persistence of Marginalization
Research Brief
pdf
– Income inequality in former British African colonies
The presence of European colonial powers in Africa has left a long-lasting legacy that has severely impacted their development trajectories. But what are the lingering effects of colonization on economic performance, in particular with regard to inequality? While clear information on many economic...
Blog
I’m writing this editorial from Dar es Salaam, while at the 20th anniversary workshop for Tanzania’s REPOA, one of our research partners. UNU-WIDER has been active in the African development debate throughout its 30 years, and our engagement has deepened even more over the last five years. Finn Tarp...
Blog
February found UNU-WIDER busy sending out Calls for Papers on topics ranging from social protection to clean energy to discrimination and affirmative action. You can find them here. There are more to come. One way to get regular updates on all our publications and opportunities is to follow UNU...
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– Bad Luck or Bad Policy?
16 December 2014 John Page On 20 November 2014 the United Nations celebrated the 25th Africa Industrialization Day. But perhaps ‘celebrate’ is not exactly the right word. Africa’s experience with industrialization over the past quarter century has actually been disappointing. In 2010, sub-Saharan...
Research Brief
Economic growth has had a negative effect on unemployment and poverty reduction in Africa. The transition from low- to middle income requires within sector increases in productivity and a shift of labour resources from low productivity agriculture to high productivity manufacturing. Structural...
Working Paper
pdf
– First Order Dominance Approach with Discrete Indicators
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 measured and reconciled, or more substantial...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Cameroon, Senegal, and Tanzania
In this study, we assess the inclusiveness of growth by tracking the yearly percentage change in the household consumption of individuals over different growth spells in Cameroon, Senegal, and Tanzania. With cross-sectional data, we track the consumption of groups of individuals that share similar...
Blog
11 September 2014 by Roger Williamson In this interview Finn Tarp, Director of UNU-WIDER, discusses the evidence uncovered in the aid and growth and other themes of the ReCom – Research and Communication on Foreign Aid programme, coordinated by UNU-WIDER 2011-13. Cross-country analysis Tarp presents...
Working Paper
pdf
– Africa’s Presidential Investors’ Advisory Councils
Recent writing on industrial policy stresses the need for coordination between the public and private sectors. This paper examines the performance of one such coordination mechanism, Presidential Investors’ Advisory Councils, in Ethiopia, Senegal, Tanzania, and Uganda. It finds that the councils...
Research Brief
In addition to large class sizes, peer effects, such as overage-for-grade and late-starting pupils, are challenges for the successful development of education sectors in East Africa; there is a comparative lack of research on the impact of peer effects. Household surveys provide good data with which...
Blog
28 May 2014 Tony Addison One indispensible part of modern life is the mobile phone. The communications revolution continues to surprise almost everyone—including those most directly involved in rolling out the new technology. UNU-WIDER researcher, Han Ei Chew, recently completed a study with UNESCO...
Working Paper
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– Challenges and the Way Forward
Tanzania’s industrial sector has evolved through various stages since independence in 1961, from nascent and undiversified to state-led import substitution industrialization, and subsequently to de-industrialization under the structural adjustment programmes and policy reforms. The current...
Blog
23 April 2014 Tony Addison With inequality much in the news of late, UNU-WIDER currently has a Call for Papers out for our conference on ‘Inequality - measurement, trends, impacts, and policy’ (the call is open until 15 May). The conference takes place 5-6 September 2014, here in Helsinki. It builds...
Working Paper
pdf
– The Case of Tanzania
This paper provides an assessment of what aid has actually been doing in the area of environment in Tanzania through a critical review of the flows, modalities and management of aid. Focusing on the funding for environmental degradation projects, the study notes that budget expenditure allocation to...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from an International Lab Experiment
Part of Journal Special Issue
Poverty, Development, and Behavioral Economics
Blog
26 March 2014 Roger Williamson Africa is growing, with The Economist noting that 6 out of 10 of the world’s fastest growing economies for 2000-10 were in Africa. But how optimistic should we be? UNU-WIDER’s new research priorities for 2014-18 are transformation, inclusion, and sustainability. All...
Blog
21 February 2014 Rachel M. Gisselquist Earlier this month, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof published a scathing critique of the role of academics in public debate. ‘Professors, We Need You!’ he moaned, noting that ‘some of the smartest thinkers on problems at home and around the world are...
Blog
28 January 2014 Tony Addison The first Angle of 2014 comes amidst the start up of our new research programme which is now kicked off. It has three big themes: transformation, inclusion and sustainability. We’ll be putting up further details of projects and conferences on the website as things evolve...
Working Paper
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– An Integrated Environmental and Economic Assessment for Tanzania
This paper evaluates the greenhouse gas emissions and economic impacts from producing biofuels in Tanzania. Sequentially-linked models capture natural resource constraints; emissions from land use change; economywide growth linkages; and household poverty. Results indicate that there are economic...
Working Paper
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– Prospecting a Mineralized Future
Over the last fifteen years many African countries have experienced a ‘mining take-off’. Mining activities have bifurcated into two sectors: large-scale, capital-intensive production generating the bulk of the exported minerals, and small-scale, labour-intensive artisanal mining, which, at present...
Working Paper
pdf
– General Lessons and Bilateral Agreements of Norway
REDD+, when it officially became part of the international climate agenda in 2007, was an idea about payment to countries and projects for reducing emission from forests, with funding primarily from carbon markets. REDD+ has since become multi-objective; the policy focus has changed from payments...
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– Unravelling the Impact of Foreign Aid
Despite impressive economic growth rates over the last decade, foreign aid still plays a significant role in Africa's political economies.This book asks when, why, and how foreign aid has facilitated, or hindered, democratization in sub-Saharan Africa. Instead of looking at foreign aid as a...
Working Paper
pdf
A recent study of 36 sub-Saharan African countries found a positive impact of aid in the absolute majority of these countries. However, for Tanzania and Ghana, two major aid recipients, aid did not seem to have been equally beneficial. This paper singles out these two countries for a more detailed...
Blog
22 August 2013 Roger Williamson Given the high growth rates since 2000 and low labour costs, Africa could develop manufacturing industry, agro-processing, and services. But these cost advantages can easily be undermined by factors such as inadequate infrastructure, particularly power, transportation...
Working Paper
pdf
Producing electricity from wind is attractive because it provides a clean, low-maintenance power supply. However, wind resource is intermittent on various time scales, thus introducing variability in power output that is difficult for electric grid planning. In the following study, wind resource is...
Blog
17 April 2013 Minister Heikki Eidsvoll Holmås Economic growth in itself will not end poverty. Stronger policies for fairer distribution are needed in a world where the 10% richest persons possess 84%, and the poorest half own only 1% of the assets. At the same time, 15% of the world’s money is...
Research Brief
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The most successful projects and programmes are those that give local partners real ownership over the development process. Aid to health is not always allocated to the areas where it is most needed. Aid fragmentation creates extra costs for recipient countries and reduces the effectiveness of...
Research Brief
pdf
– Ways to Attain MDG4 and MDG5
Progress towards the achievement of MDG4 and MDG5 has been impressive with both maternal and child mortality being reduced by over 40 per cent since 1990. However, achieving the goal of a reduction of two-thirds by 2015 will not be easy. The Paris Declaration principles of ownership, alignment, and...
Research Brief
It is a widely accept projection that many low income countries (LICs) will remain low income for some time to come. Consequently, when assessing the policy options available to LICs it is important to take a long-term view. In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Aid, Fiscal Policy, Climate Change, and Growth’...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Democratic Trajectories in Africa
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– a Computable General Equilibrium Analysis for Tanzania
Biofuels could offer new economic opportunities for low-income countries. We use a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of Tanzania to evaluate different biofuels production options and estimate their impacts on growth and poverty. Our results indicate that maximizing the poverty...
Research Brief
Various studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between urban population levels and gross national income. As such the growth of the urban population in sub-Saharan Africa may have a positive impact on the region’s economic development. However, this growth also presents a challenge...
Blog
Carl-Gustav Lindén One important part of ReCom–Research and Communication on Foreign Aid is the sharing of results. October saw the largest effort so far to bring attention to ReCom results by arranging a meeting for the theme aid and employment entitled ‘Jobs–Aid at Work’ in Copenhagen, Denmark...
Blog
Tony Addison Mid-September finds UNU-WIDER very busy preparing for our big conference on climate change and development policy that takes place later this month, as well as our WIDER Annual Lecture by Lant Pritchett of Harvard University (you can also register here to view it as a webcast) just...
Blog
Exciting research about the impact of aid on different sectors continues steadily from the ReCom project. This newsletter is an effort to present the newest papers. They can also be found on the ReCom website. For a start, I would like to highlight a paper by Lant Pritchett, Michael Woolcock and...
Journal Article
Part of Journal Special Issue
Climate Change and Economic Development
Journal Article
– Past Volatility and Future Climate Change
Part of Journal Special Issue
Climate Change and Economic Development
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The roots of development economics lie in the study of large-scale phenomena such as economic transformation. Climate change, as a global phenomenon, is drawing the attention of the profession back towards studies of transformational processes, including new considerations of adaptation and low...
Research Brief
Tanzania has been a relative success story in terms of African political reform. In the early 1990s Tanzania shifted from a one-party to a multiparty system, allowed greater freedoms for the press and civil society, and in 1995 held its first multiparty elections since 1962. The country has also...
Working Paper
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Tanzania has been a relative success story in Africa in terms of political reform. While foreign aid has helped strengthen institutions that advance accountability, it simultaneously supports a status quo that undermines accountability and democratization. This study first explores the ways in which...
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– The Case of Tanzania
Book chapter in: Fan, S., and R. Pandya-Lorch (eds.), Reshaping Agriculture for Nutrition and Health.In recent times, many countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, have been left puzzled by their failure to improve nutritional outcomes despite prolonged periods of rapid...
Journal Article
Rapid economic growth does not appear to have significantly improved poverty and nutrition outcomes in Tanzania. We link recent production trends to household incomes using a regionalized, recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium and microsimulation model. Results indicate some inconsistency...
Working Paper
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– Past Volatility and Future Climate Change
Given global heterogeneity in climate-induced agricultural variability, Tanzania has the potential to substantially increase its maize exports to other countries. If global maize production is lower than usual due to supply shocks in major exporting regions, Tanzania may be able to export more maize...
Blog
Danielle Resnick In just a little over a month, policy makers will converge in Busan, South Korea for the fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. Among other issues, policy makers will consider financial pressures in donor countries and the rise of new actors in development, including private...
Blog
– A New Vanguard for Democracy?
Danielle Resnick The victory of the opposition party, the Patriotic Front (PF), in Zambia’s presidential elections this month heralds a new era in that country’s democracy. The leader of the PF, Michael Sata, defeated the sitting president, Rupiah Banda, whose Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD)...
Blog
Milla Nyyssölä Behavioural economics, an approach combining the insights of psychology and economics, is coming to the fore in development economics. It is especially relevant in the search for new and more effective ways to reduce poverty. On 1-2 September 2011, UNU-WIDER hosted a major conference...
Working Paper
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The consequences of climate change for agriculture and food security in developing countries are of serious concern. Due to their reliance on rain-fed agriculture both as a source of income and consumption, many low-income countries are generally considered to be most vulnerable to climate change...
Blog
Tony Addison 'Birds of a feather flock together', the old saying goes. So too do investors. Today, those investment birds are a depressed lot. The summer talk is of a 'double dip recession', 'Euro zone collapse', and the USA and Europe 'turning into Japan'—years of economic stagnation. It's enough...
Journal Article
Many low-income countries in Africa are optimistic that producing biofuels will both reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels and stimulate economic development, particularly in poorer rural areas. Conversely, skeptics view biofuels as a threat to food security in the region and as a ‘land...
Working Paper
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– An Analytical Framework with Evidence from Mozambique and Tanzania
Many low income countries in Africa are optimistic that producing biofuels domestically will not only reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels, but also stimulate economic development, particularly in poorer rural areas. Skeptics, on the other hand, view biofuels as a threat to food security...
Blog
Luc Christiaensen and Lionel Demery Escalating food prices in 2007-2008, climate change and land grabbing have woken the world up to the extraordinary challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050. Indeed, following several world summits, policymakers are now convinced of the need for a significant...
Working Paper
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– Tracing the Role of Creolized Urban Ethnicity in Nation-State Formation
Dar es Salaam is exceptional in East Africa for having a record of relatively little ethnic tension, and remaining tranquil and true to its name, the ‘harbour of peace’. This paper explores the interface between ethnic and national identities in Tanzania’s capital city, focusing on its ethnic...
Book Chapter
– Tracing the Role of Creolized Urban Ethnicity in Nation-State Formation
From the book:
Urbanization and Development
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Policy Lessons from Recent Experience
Part of Journal Special Issue
Development Aid
Working Paper
pdf
– Policy Lessons from Recent Experience
This paper investigates the macroeconomic challenges created by a surge in aid inflows. It develops an analytical framework for examining possible policy responses to increased aid, in terms of absorption and spending of aid—where the central bank controls absorption through monetary policy and the...
Book Chapter
– A Risk-Cost Configuration Approach
From the book:
Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Development
Blog
by Wim Naudé The development crisis faced by Africa has been described as the ‘greatest tragedy of our time’. The continent’s generally poor growth record, documented by Augustin Kwasi Fosu in the lead article of this WIDER Angle, has led to high poverty, low incomes, and moreover a low share of the...
Working Paper
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– A Risk-Cost Configuration Approach
The paper examines the source of financial market fragmentation in sub-Saharan Africa in the framework of institutional economics. Based on fieldwork data from Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Tanzania, it analyses financial risk management, the transaction costs for loan screening and monitoring, and...
Working Paper
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This paper explores the linkages between gender, local knowledge systems and agrobiodiversity for food security by using the case study of LinKS, a regional FAO project in Mozambique, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Tanzania over a period of eight years and now concluded. The project aimed to raise...
Journal Article
Part of Journal Special Issue
Aid to Africa
Book Chapter
From the book:
Insurance Against Poverty
Blog
by Pertti Majanen and Riitta OksanenEffectiveness for poverty reduction and the MDGshe Finnish Government adopted a new development policy in 2004. The white paper links Finland's development policy and development cooperation to the framework of the Millennium Development Goals and the Millennium...
Blog
by Richard Jolly During the 18th and 19th centuries ,political economists wrote about inequality as a central issue of their time, important as a mechanism of development and for its links with poverty and social harmony. Adam Smith declared: ‘Wherever there is great property, there is great...
Blog
by Kaushik Basu 1. Forbes Online, 27 February 2003 (1), offers some information about the world’s ten richest people. Much of the information would cause little surprise. The list shows that big money comes from software innovation, economies of scale in retailing, the business of oil, investment...
Book Chapter
– A Comparative Study of Ghana and Tanzania
From the book:
Reforming Africa's Institutions
Working Paper
pdf
This paper assesses the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their impact on the economic performance of small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) of three East African countries: Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Findings of the paper suggest that the diffusion of ICT among East...
Working Paper
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– Perspectives from a New Qualifier, Tanzania
In 1970 the external debt of Tanzania, a least developed country, was 16.8 per cent of GDP and 58.6 per cent of exports. The ratio of per capita debt to per capita income was 14.4 per cent. By 2001 the debt had reached just over 100 per cent of GDP and over 11 times the value of exports, with a per...
Working Paper
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In economic literature insurance networks are often treated as exogenous institutions. Frequently, the assumption is made that some clearly identifiable group (e.g. ‘the whole village’ or ‘the extended family’) constitutes an insurance network. Still, theory suggests that the formation of insurance...
Working Paper
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– Initial Impacts and Potential for Institutionalization
An almost accidental by-product of the enhanced HIPC initiative, the process of producing poverty reduction strategy papers represents at least potentially a non-trivial change in the way international finance interacts with poverty reduction efforts at the national level. This paper reports the...
Working Paper
pdf
While growth has increased in Tanzania during the past five or six years, it is still too low to have a visible impact on poverty. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that the amounts of both income and non-income poverty are roughly the same as they were a decade ago. Since debt relief provided under...
Working Paper
pdf
– A Study of Zambia and Tanzania
This paper discusses some issues on how to evaluate the impact of HIPC debt relief in the cases of Tanzania and Zambia using two computable general equilibrium models. Within our relatively simple model framework, we found that the macroeconomic impact of debt relief is modest. One reason for this...
Working Paper
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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 component in Tanzania’s economic reform programme the...
Working Paper
pdf
– A Comparative Study of Ghana and Tanzania
This paper compares reform ownership in Ghana and Tanzania over the past two decades. It finds that on several dimensions, Ghana’s early economic reforms enjoyed a high degree of ownership. That ownership was not embedded, however, in a politico-institutional framework that ensured that ownership...
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– New Patterns and Emerging Trends
During recent years, provision of key social services in low-income countries has been affected by adverse macroeconomic conditions and by radical changes in economic thinking. For example, the welfarist approach, which gives prominence to the state in delivering and financing social services, has...
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