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– Economic policies that could make a difference
Turmoil following presidential and parliamentary elections in Mozambique has been severe. Preliminary official results from the 2024 elections indicated a landslide win by the ruling party, Frelimo. These results are widely contested, with various reports of irregularities.Post-election squabbles...
Apesar dos esforços desenvolvidos a nível mundial para formalizar as empresas, a maioria continua a operar informalmente. Dados recentes de 2022 indicam que 8 em cada 10 empresas a nível mundial continuam a ser informais. Os defensores das políticas de formalização na Organização Internacional do...
Despite global efforts to formalize enterprises, the majority still operate informally. Recent data from 2022 indicates that 8 out of 10 enterprises globally remain informal. Advocates for formalization policies at the ILO and OECD argue that it benefits firms, workers, and governments.In Mozambique...
Effective social protection programmes that meet local needs can significantly enhance wellbeing and break the cycle of structural poverty among the poor and vulnerable. Measuring their effectiveness and understanding their impact is crucial for policymakers involved in their design. The Vulnerable...
Working Paper
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In this paper, I show that the trend in spatial inequality in Mozambique almost entirely explains the outstanding surge in inequality in the country over the past decade, as well as its decline immediately after the pandemic, in contrast to its secondary role in the earliest years. For this analysis...
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.
After decades of war, Mozambique experienced sustained economic growth and poverty reduction from the mid-1990s. However, these positive dynamics started to revert from 2015. Meanwhile, inequality stagnated in the period 1996/97–2008/09, before markedly increasing afterwards. In this study, we...
Mozambique ranks in the bottom 20 of the human development index, with nearly two-thirds of its population (18.9 million people) living below the USD 0.70-a-day national poverty line. Simultaneously, the country struggles to finance public spending and consistently runs state budget deficits...
Blog
– Dois poemas de Neide Sigaúque
Aqui não dá para dormir, quanto mais para sonharSou a Neide Sigaúque,mulher,oriunda do leito Austral do terceiro mundo,Moçambique, terra de boa gente.Nasci num país independente.Independente da luta de libertação dos meus pais,mas dependente de ajuda externa do ocidente.Um país com economia pendente...
Blog
On 15 May, poet Neide Sigaúque was commissioned to perform two poems on the themes of the WIDER Development Conference The world at crossroads – securing the future generations held in Maputo, Mozambique.One cannot sleep here, let alone dream I am Neide Sigaúque,A womanfrom the southern side of the...
Report
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This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. This work was carried out by the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Mozambique in collaboration with the project partners. The results presented in this report are derived using MOZMOD version 3.0, which is part 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.
– Experimental evidence from Mozambique
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study examines the impact of digital labor-market platforms on jobs outcomes using a randomized encouragement design embedded in a longitudinal survey of Mozambican technical-vocational college graduates. We differentiate between platforms targeting formal jobs...
In Mozambique, analysing how and why food prices change is crucial. Understanding the dynamics of price formation is fundamental to mitigate the adverse effects of price volatility to the economy. Detailed data on the prices of key food items in Mozambique is, however, limited in both quantity...
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 the Sena Sugar Estates, 1920–74
ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | Forced wage labour (FWL) in colonial-era Portuguese Africa came to encompass a majority of working age men and persisted until the early 1960s. On the basis of reconstructed financial records from the Sena Sugar Estates in today's Mozambique, we estimate the long-run...
Working Paper
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– Does labour market information speed job-taking in Mozambique?
High youth unemployment rates and long school-to-work transition times pose a threat to low-income countries’ sustainable growth prospects. Using a randomized control trial experiment conducted in Mozambique, we find strong evidence that providing information on wages and unemployment reduces the...
Working Paper
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We examine the long-term impact of forced labour on individual risk behaviour and economic decisions. For that, we focus on a policy of coercive cotton cultivation enforced in colonial Mozambique between 1926 and 1961. We combine archival sources about the boundaries of historical cotton concessions...
Working Paper
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Budget reliability is the first pillar of Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA). In this study, we construct an expansion of the PEFA government response accuracy indicator and test its decomposition, with an application to the government budgets and state general accounts of...
Journal Article
– Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique
ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | Digital labour platforms have grown five-fold over the past decade, enabling significant expansion of gig work worldwide. We interrogate the critique that these platforms tend to amplify aggregate shocks for registered workers. Based on the universe of records from a...
Blog
– Report from the 2023 IGM Annual Conference
More than 70% of the Mozambican population depends on subsistence agriculture. As such, the agriculture sector is undoubtedly of fundamental importance to the country’s wellbeing. It has enormous potential to reduce poverty, promote food security, and generate income and employment. Despite its...
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.
Biased beliefs about future labor-market earnings are commonplace. Based on a longitudinal survey of graduate work transitions in Mozambique, this study assesses the contribution of employment mismatches to a large positive gap between expected (ex ante) and realized (ex post) earnings.Accounting...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Mozambique
The political consequences of economic inequality have been debated in academic and policy circles for centuries. The nature of this relationship seems highly dependent on specific contexts, with empirical studies showing mixed evidence on how economic inequality affects voting and other forms of...
Working Paper
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Following the abolition of slavery, various forms of compulsory labour were adopted by colonial powers to develop their economies. This paper analyses the contemporary consequences of compulsory cotton production—a forced labour system that operated in colonial Mozambique from 1926 to 1961. During...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Mozambique
Using a unique panel survey of final-year undergraduates at six of the largest universities in Mozambique, we study the wage premium associated with completing an undergraduate degree. Conditional on a very rich set of controls, including pre-degree earnings, objective measures of ability, and...
Working Paper
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– A bird’s eye view based on existing databases
Using publicly available databases and drawing on a wide range of indicators, this paper reviews the institutional performance of Mozambique across seven broad categories: rule of law and judicial independence; voice and freedom of expression/association; political participation; accountability and...
Working Paper
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– Examining socio-psychological characteristics and information provision
Worldwide, enterprises are hit by disasters such as cyclones and floods. Despite being impacted negatively, most enterprises do not prepare for future disasters. This study aims at understanding the determinants of enterprises’ disaster preparedness. It first examines whether specific socio...
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:
Mozambique at a Fork in the Road
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:
Mozambique at a Fork in the Road
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.
– The Restricted Capacity of the Judicial System
From the book:
Mozambique at a Fork in the Road
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:
Mozambique at a Fork in the Road
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:
Mozambique at a Fork in the Road
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:
Mozambique at a Fork in the Road
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.
– Institutional Causes
From the book:
Mozambique at a Fork in the Road
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:
Mozambique at a Fork in the Road
– The Institutional Diagnostic Project
Few countries have experienced as many political and economic changes as Mozambique. A vast and diverse country, it faced a particularly difficult start after a long period of colonial dominance followed by a deadly war that formally ended only in 1992. However, despite impressive growth after multi...
Working Paper
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– A comparative perspective
We examine the distributional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated tax-benefit measures in seven sub-Saharan African countries, focusing on the onset of the crisis.We evaluate impacts on disposable incomes, considering variations across income groups; assess the effectiveness of tax...
Working Paper
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– A social accounting matrix approach
This study makes use of Mozambican social accounting matrices (SAMs) for the years 2007 and 2019, which we compare to uncover structural changes. Our findings reflect the significant short- and long-term challenges that Mozambican policy makers face. Broad-based dynamic change and structural...
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 Mozambique
We examine how returns to education have evolved in the context of post-conflict reconstruction and economic growth in Mozambique over the period 1996–2015. We show that private rates of return to education have declined at lower levels of schooling, but remained stable and possibly even increased...
– Relatório final
Este relatório documenta os principais resultados do Inquérito às Indústrias Manufactureiras Moçambicanas 2022 (IIM 2022). O inquérito foi realizado em 2022 no âmbito do programa Crescimento inclusivo em Moçambique (IGM) com apoio do Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros da Finlândia e Ministério dos...
– Final report
This report documents the main findings of the Survey of Mozambican Manufacturing Firms 2022 (IIM 2022). The survey was implemented in 2022 under the Inclusive growth in Mozambique (IGM) programme with the support from the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign...
Report
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This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. 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 MOZMOD results against...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from an ethnographic study in Mozambique
This ethnographic study explores the implementation of bilingual education in Mozambique: how it is understood, adapted, and resisted by school directors, teachers, and local officials. Bilingual education uses local languages in early grades before a gradual shift into Portuguese, which most...
– Differences based on gender
A recent study examines how inequality is perceived among young adults in Mozambique and how perceptions of inequality correlate with different demographic characteristics, including gender. It focuses on how young Mozambicans view the disparities between rich and poor people and why. Additionally...
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.
Mozambique experienced important reductions in the poverty rate until recently, before two major natural disasters hit, an armed insurgency stroke in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, and the country started suffering from a hidden debt crisis with associated economic slowdown. As the last...
Blog
Over the past few months, we have been carrying out extensive research in Mozambique as part of the Inequality and governance in unstable democracies – the mediating role of trust project. The research aims to understand the long-term impacts of cotton concessions —a forced labour system implemented...
Working Paper
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Different concepts of inequality lead to different positions in discussions about whether economic growth leads to increasing inequality. This study investigates how over 1,100 young adults in Mozambique perceive inequality and whether their perceptions are based on relative or absolute terms. It...
Working Paper
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– The case of post-war migration in Mozambique
Internal migration plays an important role in the economic development of individuals, their families, and their country. This study describes Mozambique’s most common migration patterns from 1992 until 2017 using data from three population censuses. We focus on the most important moves between...
Blog
– Key findings from the IGM Annual Conference 2022
Since 2016, the private sector in Mozambique has faced several external shocks, including terrorism in Cabo Delgado, Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Ukrainian conflict and its impact on commodity prices and inflation. What is the state of the Mozambican private sector today...
– The case of Mozambique
Designing and implementing public policies requires caution to guarantee the best use of scarce resources, especially in middle- and lower-income countries. One of the ways to achieve this goal is to simulate the potential tax and benefit impacts of different policies that are under consideration...
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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Informal self-employed traders in developing countries are vulnerable to shocks as they often lack access to social insurance or formal finance. This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these urban traders in the capital of Mozambique, Maputo. Drawing on longitudinal phone...
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This study investigates the short-term impacts of an aggregate socioeconomic shock on household food consumption and children’s nutrition using the case of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique. In response to the economic downturn, households are expected to adjust their food choices both in terms of...
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This study presents and discusses structural features of the Mozambique economy through the lens of a recently constructed 2019 social accounting matrix (SAM). This is an important reality check of the SAM construction process since it brings together various data sources that are not necessarily...
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In this study, we explore the correlates of the employment gender gap among urban youth in Mozambique. Young people are confronted with simultaneous decisions about education, work and family life influenced by social norms around gender roles. Using data from a panel of individuals in 2017 and 2020...
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– 1996/97–2019/20
After decades of war, ending in 1992, Mozambique embarked on a path of sustained economic growth and substantial poverty reduction. However, these positive dynamics started to revert from 2015, with per capita growth rates getting close to zero and household real consumption reducing in all areas of...
Technical Note
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This technical note describes how the 2015 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for Mozambique was updated. New Household Budget Survey data availability, changes in the economic structure as captured by the underlying Supply and Use Tables and National Accounts as well as the frequency of previous SAM...
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 Mozambican job-seekers
Forward-looking expectations are central to job search but often inaccurate. To test whether public information can help correct beliefs, we embed an experiment in a longitudinal survey of Mozambican graduates. We quantify responses of own-earning expectations to information about peers’ current...
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 Mozambican firms
In sub-Saharan Africa, many micro and small enterprises do not (or at least only partially) comply with official rules and regulations. Given that low compliance rates impede economic growth and human development, it is essential to identify mechanisms that can help improve abidance with laws. This...
Blog
– Experimental evidence from Mozambique
Digital technologies can be deployed to improve job search, but their effectiveness in practice is disrupted. This column uses experimental data to investigate the effect of a digital job-matching platform on the labour outcomes of young people in Mozambique. The ‘treatment’ of a text message...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from COVID-19
Digital labour platforms have grown five-fold over the last decade, enabling significant expansion in gig work worldwide. We interrogate the criticism that these platforms tend to amplify aggregate economic shocks for registered users (workers). Based on the universe of records from a matching...
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.
– From additive weights to minimal bundles
In the widely-used class of multidimensional poverty measures introduced by Alkire and Foster (2011), dimension-specific weights combined with a single cut-off parameter play a fundamental role in identifying who is multidimensionally poor. This study revisits how these parameters are understood...
Working Paper
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– Labour coercion and trade preferences on the Sena Sugar Estates (1920–74)
The magnitude of returns to colonial-era investments in Africa has been addressed in an extensive literature, as have the nature and legacies of extractive colonial institutions. However, the link between these institutions and the profitability of firms remains unclear. We reconstruct the annual...
Working Paper
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– Experimental evidence from sub-Saharan Africa
Can digital labour market platforms reduce search frictions in either formal or informal labour markets? We study this question using a randomized experiment embedded in a tracer study of the work transitions of graduates from technical and vocational colleges in Mozambique. We implement an...
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.
This study assesses the impact of COVID-19 on household consumption poverty. To predict changes in income and the associated effects on poverty, we rely on existing estimated macroeconomic impacts. We assume two main impact channels: direct income/wage and employment losses. Our simulations suggest...
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 social accounting matrix approach
This study assesses the economic costs of COVID-19 and the state of emergency implemented by the Government of Mozambique. We use a social accounting matrix multiplier analysis to estimate the effects of the pandemic on the economy. Our simulations suggest that the Mozambican economy lost 3.6...
Working Paper
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The subject of this paper is health and ethnic inequalities in Mozambique, with special reference to leprosy. It is argued that the health policies and strategies adopted in the colonial and post-colonial periods led to an unequal distribution not only of certain diseases but also of health...
Report
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View the latest MOZMOD country report here. This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. 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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This paper estimates the causal impact of teacher content knowledge on student achievement in Mozambique, a low-income country where a large share of fourth-graders fail to meet the minimum requirements of literacy and numeracy. I use nationally representative data from the Service Delivery...
Technical Note
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Agricultural subsidies may have significant productive and distributional consequences, and policy-makers need to be able to assess these impacts as a part of the overall tax and benefit policy. Microsimulation models offer a tool for such analysis also in developing countries, but their coverage...
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...
Moçambique reportou o seu primeiro caso da COVID-19 em 22 de Março de 2020. As estimativas do PIB sugerem um forte efeito da pandemia, com uma redução de sete dos nove dos sectores de actividade analisados. No entanto, o sector agrícola – um dos mais importantes – registou um aumento de 9%, que pode...
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)...
Mozambique reported its first case of COVID-19 on 22 March 2020. GDP estimates suggest a strong pandemic effect, with a reduction in seven of nine business sectors analysed. However, the agriculture sector, one of the most important, experienced a 9% increase, which may have cushioned the pandemic...
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...
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 wide range of evidence shows systematic differences in health status among social groups, which are associated with unequal exposure to and distribution of the social determinants of health (SDH). However, the role of these SDH has not been studied extensively in low-income countries, where most...
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...
Report
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View the latest MOZMOD country report here. This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. 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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This paper builds on a longitudinal school-to-work transition phone survey experiment to quantify the effects on attrition of communicating with participants. Specifically, we study the impact of sending topically relevant information on job market conditions via SMS at the start of each survey...
Working Paper
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– The Mozambican case
At independence in 1975, the Frelimo government took over public administration from the colonial system and started to transform it. The public financial management (PFM) system was adapted to the central planning and management of the economy in line with nationalist and Marxist-Leninist thinking...
Working Paper
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This paper explores agricultural performance of Mozambique, its institutional weaknesses, and the underlying factors that underpin an unsatisfactory performance during many decades. We point to the role of systemic political instability and violence combined with challenges to state legitimacy...
Working Paper
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– The case of Mozambican firms
Using panel data of manufacturing enterprises in Mozambique between 2012 and 2017, we investigate how changes in perceived quality of governance are related to firms’ law compliance. Controlling for firm-level unobserved heterogeneity, we look at three aspects of governance and their components...
– Dinâmica da transição ensino-emprego dos finalistas do ETP em Moçambique
O Ensino Técnico-Profissional (ETP) é frequentemente visto como uma solução milagrosa que resolve questões que vão desde o desemprego juvenil até à mudança estrutural relacionada com o mercado de trabalho. Isto é particularmente verdade para os países em desenvolvimento com um ensino básico...
– The dynamics of school-to-work transition of TVET graduates in Mozambique
Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) is often seen as a silver bullet resolving issues ranging from youth unemployment to labour market-related structural change. This is particularly true for developing countries with deficient basic education and high numbers of youth seeking to...
– Relatório Final
Este relatório documenta as principais conclusões do Inquérito à Transiçãoo Ensino-Emprego dos Finalistas do Ensino Técnico-Profissional em Moçambique. A pesquisa foi planificada e implementada por pesquisadores do United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU...
Survey on the school-to-work transition of technical and vocational training graduates in Mozambique
– Final report
This report documents the main conclusions of the Survey on the School-to-Work Transition of Technical and Vocational Education and Training Graduates in Mozambique. The research was planned and implemented by researchers from the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics...
– Three lessons to inform next steps
At the start of the last decade, Mozambique’s prospects looked stellar. Following from the early 1990s, when peace finally arrived after a devastating and protracted armed conflict, this vast country in Southern Africa could look back proudly on a sustained period of rapid growth and poverty...
Working Paper
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This study assesses the impact of four coal mines in Mozambique on the socioeconomic outcomes of the local population. We combine four waves of household surveys with coal mine locations data and employ a difference-in-difference model. The timing of the surveys allows us to control for pre-trends...
Working Paper
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– 1997–2017
This study seeks to add to the research on inequality in least developed countries, namely in Mozambique, by measuring and mapping indicators of horizontal wealth inequality along geographic regions and ethnolinguistic identities. Using census data for 1997, 2007, and 2017, we identify possible...
Working Paper
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– Practical guidance on measuring intergenerational mobility from a simulation framework
Despite the importance attributed to intergenerational educational mobility in the process of development, there remains little consensus on how mobility should be measured. We present analytical and empirical evidence regarding the sensitivity of alternative estimators to different forms of...
Working Paper
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– Insights from a digital matching platform in Mozambique
Despite the severe negative economic shock associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence from many contexts points to a surge in sales on online platforms, as well as shifts in the composition of demand. This paper investigates how the pandemic has affected both the supply of and demand for...
Working Paper
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This study assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the state of emergency implemented by the Government of Mozambique on household consumption poverty. To predict changes in income and the associated effects on poverty and inequality, we rely on macroeconomic impacts estimated by Betho et...
Working Paper
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– A social accounting matrix approach
This study aims to assess the economic costs of COVID-19 and the state of emergency implemented by the Government of Mozambique, relying on a social accounting matrix. It produces numerical results that represent the direct effect on (or ‘shocks’ to) the economy associated with the pandemic. We...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Idai
Cyclone Idai, the most devastating cyclone ever recorded in Southern Africa, caused havoc in large parts of central Mozambique, especially the port city of Beira, upon its landfall in March 2019. This study reviews and compares measurements of the impact, using various sources of remote sensing data...
Working Paper
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– RCT evidence from Mozambique
In March 2019, Cyclone Idai hit central Mozambique and caused widespread damage, including businesses in the enterprise sector. We use panel data and a randomized controlled trial to estimate the impact of unconditional cash grants on micro enterprises and their recovery. We find that, on average...
Working Paper
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This study investigates how manufacturing companies were affected by tropical Cyclone Idai, which struck Central Mozambique in March 2019. The analysis builds upon a representative sample of 464 enterprises located in the cities of Beira and Chimoio which were interviewed 6 and 12 months after the...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Mozambique
We examine the link between individual characteristics and sorting into different occupations using data from university students in Mozambique. We provide a comprehensive approach combining the main determinants of occupational sorting identified in the literature in a single framework to test both...
– Simulando diferentes cenários para atualização e expansão do PSSB
O Programa Subsídio Social Básico (PSSB) é um programa de transferência de renda mensal, não condicional, por tempo indeterminado, com o objectivo de reforçar o bem-estar da população pobre e vulnerável. São actualmente elegíveis ao PSSB pessoas em extrema pobreza e vulnerabilidade e agregados...
The negative economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique range from reduced social interaction to business closures, job losses, and increased poverty. Existing evidence already shows significant effects on the transitions of young people graduating from technical and...
Investments in infrastructure – such as roads – typically aim to reduce transport costs, stimulate trade, and make new production activities viable. Across sub-Saharan Africa, the need for such investments is widely acknowledged. The argument for more and better infrastructure seems fairly...
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.
– Bridging the Zambezi in Mozambique
Historically, transport infrastructure connecting the most agriculturally productive areas of Mozambique and the richer southern region has been poor. A primary bottleneck was an unreliable ferry service over the Zambezi river, addressed by construction of a road bridge in 2009. In this study we...
Working Paper
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– A validation exercise and an application to cross-sectional survey data
In this paper we first validate the use of the synthetic panels technique in the context of the 2014/15 intra-year panel survey data for Mozambique, and then apply the same technique to the 1996/97, 2002/03, 2008/09, and 2014/15 cross-sectional household budget surveys for the same country. We find...
– Simulações dos efeitos de uma pensão para cobertura universal de velhice em Moçambique
Moçambique apresenta instrumentos legais que visam directa ou indirectamente reduzir a vulnerabilidade das pessoas idosas. Com efeito, há cerca de duas décadas, o país aprovou através da Resolução n.º 84/2002 de 12 de Novembro, a Política para a Pessoa Idosa e a estratégia da sua implementação...
– Reflections from the annual conference of the Inclusive growth in Mozambique programme
Like many developing countries, Mozambique is struggling with problems of poverty, inequality, low productivity, unemployment, and low institutional capacity. The COVID-19 pandemic is now adding to these challenges. Finding solutions hinges on examining, understanding, and building the evidence that...
Working Paper
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Plastics are ubiquitous across the region and play an important role in multiple industries. Most plastic products are based on a value chain that is grounded in petroleum refining, posing an environmental challenge. Plastic manufacturing in South Africa suffers from the high cost of polymers as...
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.
– Assessing the short-term impact on consumption and poverty of the 2015 flood in Mozambique
Mozambique is among the most disaster-prone countries in the world. A bigger than usual, and mostly unexpected, flood occurred in the central-northern region of the country in the first few months of 2015, causing huge damage to infrastructures. In this study, we use a nationally representative...
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.
We analyse the multidimensional wellbeing of children aged 0–17 in Mozambique and find that 46.3% can be considered multidimensionally poor. A substantial divide exists between urban and rural areas and between northern and southern provinces. We compare Mozambican children’s wellbeing with that of...
Working Paper
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Mozambique is among the world’s least complex economies. By systematically accounting for both supply- and demand-side factors, we identify new products and sectors that can help to diversify and upgrade its economy. In a supply-side analysis, we use network methods from the literature on economic...
Working Paper
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– The effect of peer salary information on own-earnings forecasts
How jobseekers set their earnings expectations is central to job search models. To study this process, we track the evolution of own-earnings forecasts over 18 months for a representative panel of university-leavers in Mozambique and estimate the impact of a wage information intervention. We sent...
Working Paper
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In the light of Mozambique’s natural resources boom—especially its large-scale investments in mining, oil, and gas—this paper analyses the prospects for the extractive industries to contribute to economic transformation from an institutional perspective. To this purpose, we address the institutional...
Working Paper
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As a sovereign country, Mozambique initially relied on international solidarity and managed its donor relations well. Donor dependency entailed some loss of agency for the government as it allowed donors to challenge its capacity but never its authority. However, in the last decade, donor countries...
Working Paper
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The rule of law and judicial independence are a project yet to be achieved in Mozambique. The different attempts made so far to reform the legal system, mainly after the change in political and strategic direction brought about by the Constitution of 1990, were always short-sighted and conjunctural...
Working Paper
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– Factors affecting public financial management
Mozambique has achieved incipient but still fragile socio-economic development since 1975. The public financial management system has been reformed and improved, but its performance has weakened since 2013. Applying an institutional economics approach, we have identified the economic growth strategy...
Working Paper
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– The role of institutions in the definition of results
With the introduction of the economic reforms in the late 1980s, the opening up of the political arena and the end of the civil war in the early 1990s, the decentralization process began in Mozambique. Different research developed in recent years shows that, as is the case in other countries in sub...
Working Paper
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– The Mozambique case
The central aim of this text is to show the impact institutions have on the performance of the health sector in Mozambique. The text shows that of the social determinants of health, institutions play a central role in the performance of the Mozambican health sector—and, through it, economic and...
Working Paper
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– From access to epistemic quality in primary education
From the early days of national independence in 1975, the central aim of the educational policy in Mozambique has been to ensure that all school-age children have access to school and can remain there until they have completed their basic education. In the pursuit of this aim, the extension of...
Working Paper
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The financial inclusion effort achieved positive results, with the number of Mozambicans having access to banking services increasing considerably, particularly after 2011–12. However, the economic and social impact was limited, considering that farm productivity has remained low and poverty levels...
Working Paper
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This paper is a review of the institutions and the performance of the agricultural sector in Mozambique, using an analysis table adapted to the assessment of the connections between the institutions and economic development. In the first part, information is presented on the performance of the...
Blog
– In their own words
Across Mozambique, 1,600 secondary school graduates from technical and vocational (TVET) institutes are being tracked as part of the school-to-work transition survey of the Inclusive growth in Mozambique programme — the country’s first long-term study in this area. Back in January, I conducted in...
Blog
– The impact of COVID-19 on the transition of young Mozambicans from school to work
Since appearing in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the world into an unprecedented health and socioeconomic crisis. In response, during the second half of March 2020, the government of Mozambique enacted several measures (in force until now) to guarantee social distancing, with the aim of...
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.
In this study, I quantify the contribution of a subpopulation to inequality. This is defined as the sum of the contributions of its members, with these contributions computed as the impact on inequality of a small increase in the population mass at each point of the distribution (using the...
Working Paper
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– What explains behavioural dishonesty in low-income countries?
We run a lab-in-the-field experiment with 1,060 university students in Mozambique to examine the correlates of behavioural dishonesty, distinguishing between intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Using an incentivized dice game, which yields direct estimates of the propensity to cheat, we find that the...
– A snapshot of Mozambique in 2015–2018
After decades of war and conflict, Mozambique and its economy experienced a strong recovery from the 1990s into the 2000s. However, between 2015 and 2018 multiple crises unfolded in Mozambique — the economic crisis and the scandal of hidden debt, severe weather shocks, and increasing violence in the...
Working Paper
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– Gender inequality in salary expectations of university students
Students’ expectations about their future wages are established in the literature as relevant determinants of the choices made for education progression and, at the university level, for the area and course to be studied. In this paper, the first comparable analysis in sub-Saharan Africa, we examine...
Working Paper
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Mozambique experienced important reduction in the poverty rate until recently, before two major natural disasters hit and the country started suffering from a hidden debt scandal with associated economic slowdown. As the last available national household expenditure survey is from 2014/15, just...
Blog
Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is often put forward as the solution to youth unemployment — but to prove its worth, better evidence is needed. A new survey tracking over 1,600 TVET graduates as they enter the world of work, the first of its kind in Mozambique, sets out to...
– Baseline survey on the school-to-work transition of technical and vocational education graduates in Mozambique (in Portuguese)
A investigação aqui apresentada foi planeada e implementada por pesquisadores do United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), do Grupo de Pesquisa em Economia do Desenvolvimento (DERG) da Universidade de Copenhaga (UCPH), do Centro de Estudos de Economia...
– Inquérito de base à transição ensino-emprego dos graduados do ensino técnico-profissional em Moçambique
The research detailed herein was planned and implemented by researchers at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), the Develop-ment Economics Research Group (DERG) at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH), the Centre for Economics and Management...
As the COVID-19 virus has spread across the globe, developing countries are starting to enact many of the same policies used in China, Europe, and North America to contain the virus. But are these policies appropriate in low income contexts? To help think about this we propose a simple index of...
We calculated a lockdown readiness index for Mozambique and the results don’t look good. If lockdown policies are needed to halt the spread of the virus, the government will also need to take extraordinary measures to provide a minimum of basic services for people living under a lockdown. They...
View the latest MOZMOD country report here. This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. The report 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...
Working Paper
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– Explaining the gap between expected and realized graduate earnings in Mozambique
Inaccurate expectations of future wages are found in many contexts. Yet, existing studies overwhelmingly refer to high-income countries, and there is little evidence regarding the sources of expectational errors.Based on a longitudinal survey of graduates from the six largest universities in...
– Relatório Final do Inquérito à Transição Ensino-Emprego dos Finalistas Universitários
This report documents the main findings of the Survey of School-to-Work Transitions ofUniversity Students.The research was planned and implemented by researchers at the UnitedNations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), theDevelopment Economics Research Group...
From the book:
Mining for Change
This report documents the main findings of the Survey of School-to-Work Transitions of University Students. The research was planned and implemented by researchers at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), the Development Economics Research...
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
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– Impact of food, soft drinks, and coffee on cognitive and non-cognitive test scores
Cognitive and non-cognitive tests are key factors in many aspects of economics, especially within labour market analysis. Non-cognitive tests and personality traits are increasingly used, as these are found to be as critical as cognitive abilities for labour market outcomes, while they might be more...
Working Paper
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Using convolutional neural networks applied to satellite images covering a 25 km x 12 km rectangle on the northern outskirts of Greater Maputo, we detect and classify buildings from 2010 and 2018 in order to compare the development in quantity and quality of buildings from before and after...
Working Paper
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– An economy-wide perspective
The recent discovery of large fields of natural gas in Mozambique has led to great international interest and expectations of future gains. However, many resource-rich countries have struggled to achieve long-term sustainable growth, whether because of poor management, unequal outcomes, or political...
– Key findings from an extensive survey
This brief summarizes the findings and implications of a survey of the school-to-work transition by Mozambican university students. No research of this kind had previously been conducted. Over the course of a year and a half, university graduates were monitored in their transition to the labour...
– Final report on the survey on the education-employment transitions of university finalists (in Portuguese)
Este relatório documenta as principais conclusões do Inquérito à Transição Ensino-Emprego dos Finalistas Universitários. A pesquisa foi planificada e implementada por pesquisadores do United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), o Grupo de Pesquisa em...
Sitting in front of a class of 20 young students at a private technical-vocational college on the edge of Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique, I cannot help but reflect on the fervent social media debates regarding the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences award of the 2019 Nobel Prize in economics...
Working Paper
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– A 2015 social accounting matrix multiplier decomposition approach for Mozambique
This paper considers the impact of agriculture and international trade development on income distribution and economic activity in Mozambique. A social accounting matrix multiplier decomposition model is used—in particular, an extension of the standard model that details the process of income...
View the latest MOZMOD country report here. This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. This work was carried out by the Ministry of Economy and Finance of Mozambique in collaboration with the project partners in the scope of the SOUTHMOD project. The results presented...
What does it mean to be poor? On the face of it, this may not sound like a very difficult question. In developed countries, almost all official and everyday definitions refer to poverty in income terms. In this sense, low consumption power (income) and poverty are essentially synonymous. Outside of...
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