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Publications (8703)
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 presents an empirical framework that explores the relationship between poverty reduction and changes in the production structure of developing countries. We use the new GGDC-UNU-WIDER Economic Transformation Database to measure productivity growth within sectors and structural change –...
Journal Article
The shale gas revolution in the United States induced an unprecedented commodity boom across northwestern India. Leveraging population-based discontinuities in the contemporaneous roll-out of India’s national rural electrification scheme, we show that access to electricity increased total employment...
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 examines the trajectory of global income inequality since 1981. Commonly used (relative) definitions indicate a decline in global inequality since the late 1980s. Looking ahead, it has been intuited that the influence of China's economic development — and that of other rapidly growing...
As a young data developer responsible for mining and analysing the administrative tax data provided to researchers through the SA-TIED programme, I am acutely aware of the economic challenges faced by the average South African, particularly young people. According to recent data from Statistics...
In a new release for the UNU-WIDER and Cambridge University Press Elements in Development Economics series, I look at global capitalist economic history through a new lens. In the book, I highlight how the creation of, command over, and exclusion from knowledge is a critical factor explaining why...
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 study analyses trends in global income distribution since 1950 using a new companion WIID dataset with standardized country income percentiles. It investigate the robustness of these trends with respect to key data choices, as well as the degree to which the inequality trend depends on specific...
Working Paper
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Why do some conflict-affected areas remain an arena of violent contestation of the state, while others transition to peace? I suggest that economic networks developed during intrastate conflict—i.e. wartime economies—give rise to continued pockets of insecurity. The significance of the wartime...
Working Paper
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South Africa frequently experiences rolling blackouts (‘load shedding’) due to shortfalls in electricity generation. This is a common problem across the developing world, and yet the developmental impacts of insufficient and unstable electricity supply, and the benefits of mitigating this, are...
Working Paper
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This paper critically examines the shortcomings of post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021, arguing that an overemphasis on measurable results and causal inference led to overly narrow, community-driven development interventions that failed to appreciate the complex...
Working Paper
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Domestic resource mobilization has rightly been placed at the centre of the ‘financing for development’ agenda across developing countries. While much is known about the importance of domestic taxes in contributing to this agenda, little is known about the potential importance of domestic savings...
Journal Article
– Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in Mozambique
ARTICLE 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 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.
– An open repository on inequality and polarization in length of life (1950–2021)
Monitoring health is key for identifying priorities in public health planning and improving healthcare services. Life expectancy has conventionally been regarded as a valuable indicator to compare the health status of different populations. However, this measure is simply the mean of the...
– Journeys in development economics
‘What makes UNU-WIDER a unique place for researchers is the sense of community and the combination of academic rigour, policy relevance, and position within the UN system’ — Amelia Santos-Paulino, UNU-WIDER Alumni ‘UNU-WIDER always manages to bring together many perspectives from development...
In South Africa, the power grid undergoes rotational, scheduled outages—or rolling blackouts—most commonly referred to as load shedding. Load shedding is primarily a consequence of frequent breakdowns at the national utility. These are due to a combination of poor long-term planning, a lack of...
In 2024, central banks worldwide are confronted with the challenges of juggling inflation control, economic growth, and the preservation of financial stability. A new report from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) outlines many of the dangers the economy faces...
Blog
We are off track to end poverty. Despite remarkable progress over the past few decades, the goal of eradicating poverty remains elusive, and SDG1: End poverty in all its forms everywhere is out of reach. While more than a billion people have been lifted out of poverty, the pace has significantly...
– Lessons from Index-Based Livestock Insurance
IN PRODUCTION: SCHEDULED FOR PUBLICATION IN JUNE 2024This study outlines the origins and evolution of an international award-winning development intervention, index-based livestock insurance (IBLI), which scaled from a small pilot project in Kenya to a design that underpins drought risk management...
Journal Article
– Examining the role of conventional banks in deepening access to formal credit
Using a unique district-level panel dataset, we investigate the effect of banking system penetration on financial inclusion in Ghana. To purge potential endogeneity bias in the underlying relationship, we exploit a change in the policy environment of the Ghanaian banking system to instrument for...
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.
Political clientelism — which reflects strategic, discretionary, and targeted exchange of private goods and services for political support to the incumbent — has characterised distributive politics in the Global South for decades. The conditional nature of exchange between political parties and...
Working Paper
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South Africa’s current electricity crises have worsened, placing the country on an uncertain and turbulent economic trajectory.To identify the manufacturing sub-sectors that are most vulnerable to this crises, we use the input–output matrices for the period between 1993 and 2021 to develop a sub...
Working Paper
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African cities are increasingly seen as key to unlocking national structural transformation and inclusive growth, as they tend to host the majority of the non-productive and informal labour force; attract the lion’s share of domestic investment in non-productive sectors; and host different political...
Working Paper
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– What does the long-run evidence tell us?
There is a broad agreement that political and economic institutions matter for long-term development. Yet relatively little is known as to how to adopt good quality institutions and reform weak or poor institutions, for which one needs to know how institutions change. This paper provides a...
Working Paper
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– A combined principal components and clustering analysis
Better understanding of inequality, including its relationship to governance and other key outcomes, is relevant both to academic researchers and to policy-makers. Nevertheless, efforts to establish causal relationships empirically remain hampered by the quality and availability of data, especially...
Working Paper
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– Economic impact under the microscope
Rising levels of income inequality and tight government budgets have spurred discussions in many developing nations about how to appropriately tax high-income earners. In this paper, we study taxpayer responses to an increase in the top marginal tax rate in South Africa, drawing on exceptionally...
Working Paper
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Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)’s public debt burden remains a challenge to development. Key drivers of public debt include large-scale financing of infrastructure development, adverse impact of multiple shocks including COVID-19 pandemic, maturity mismatches, and high vulnerability to exchange rate and...
Journal Article
ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study investigates the effects of taxation on income inequality in an unbalanced panel of 45 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1980–2018. We use two-stage least squares and the instrumental variables quantile regression estimates. We find that taxation...
– Ending Poverty While Protecting Nature
BOOK IN PRODUCTION: SCHEDULED PUBLICATION DECEMBER 2024Almost everything that is essential to modern society — transport and power systems, buildings, machinery, and medical devices — depends upon metals, minerals, and stone as well as oil and natural gas which provide the energy for households and...
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...
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:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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.
– Lessons from Relief for Comprehensive Social Protection
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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.
– What Is Missing from National Economic Recovery Plans?
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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.
– A Case of Domestic Workers in Delhi
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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.
– Unpacking COVID-19 Impact on Livelihoods and Poverty in Rural Areas and Urban Low-Income Settlements of Bangladesh
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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.
– Accounts from Residents of Cape Town’s Largest Township
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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.
– Differentiated Impacts and an Uneven Recovery
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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...
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
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...
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...
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.
– National labour surveys in five Latin American countries and field research in 11 cities around the world
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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.
– Degrees and Pathways of Impact in 11 Cities around the World
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
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.
– COVID-19 and the Informal Sector
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
Blog
The climate stabilization imperative emerging from the Paris Agreement is, in so many ways, absolutely critical to securing the planet’s future for all. The Agreement necessitates a transition away from fossil fuel-based economic production, particularly the use of coal as a source of energy. In...
Blog
As we look towards securing a brighter future for coming generations, we must address the complex challenges that threaten sustainable development and global stability. Among these challenges, conflict stands out as a particularly destructive one. In our latest research, we find that a country that...
Report
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This report documents ZANMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Zanzibar. This work was carried out by staff at Zanzibar University, the Second Vice President’s Office in Zanzibar, the University of Dar es Salaam, and the University of Dodoma, in collaboration with UNU-WIDER and SASPRI. The results...
Report
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This report documents PERUMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Peru. This work was carried out by UNU-WIDER in collaboration with the Universidad del Pacífico (UP) in Peru. The results presented in this report are derived using PERUMOD version 2.5, which is part of the SOUTHMOD bundle (SOUTHMOD_A2...
Report
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This report documents ECUAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ecuador. This work was carried out by the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in collaboration with the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO Ecuador). The...
Report
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This report documents COLMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Colombia. This work was carried out by the Observatorio de Desarrollo y Política Social (ODEPS) at Facultad de Economía, Universidad Externado de Colombia. The results presented in this report are derived using COLMOD version 2.4, which...
Report
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This report documents BOLMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Bolivia. This work was carried out independently by Cristina Arancibia and David Macas. The results presented in this report are derived using BOLMOD version 2.1, which is part of the SOUTHMOD bundle (SOUTHMOD_A2.0) and runs on EUROMOD...
Report
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This report documents MicroZAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Zambia. This work was carried out by Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis & Research (ZIPAR) in collaboration with the project partners. The results presented in this report are derived using MicroZAMOD version 2.16, which is part of...
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...
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...
Report
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This report documents UGAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Uganda. This work was carried out by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) and Makerere University in collaboration with the project partners. The results presented in this report are derived using UGAMOD version 2.1, which is part of the...
Report
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This report documents VNMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Viet Nam. This work has been carried out by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) in collaboration with UNU-WIDER and SASPRI. The results presented in this report are derived using VNMOD version 3.4, which is part of the...
Report
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This report documents GHAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ghana. This work was carried out by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana in collaboration with the project partners. The results presented in this report are derived using GHAMOD...
Report
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This report documents ETMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ethiopia. The Ethiopian national team currently includes Adnan A. Shahir, Abas Mohammed Ali (Ministry of Planning and Development, Ethiopia), and Francesco Figari (University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy), who are responsible for the 2023...
Blog
Future tools and foresight thinking are crucial instruments to improve decision-making for a common future. As a Youth Foresight Fellow with UNICEF, I firmly believe that utilizing foresight, a sophisticated approach for anticipation and strategic planning, is essential in tackling and lessening the...
Report
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This report documents RWAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Rwanda. This work was carried out by UNU-WIDER, SASPRI, and the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA). The results presented in this report are derived using RWAMOD version 1.1, which is part of the SOUTHMOD bundle (SOUTHMOD_A2.0) and runs on...
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...
Blog
In an era frequently described as ‘unprecedented’, the global landscape often seems daunting. Countries classified as democracies are increasingly outnumbered by those classified as autocracies, interstate conflicts have escalated, and the multifaceted impacts of climate change—from health crises to...
Journal Article
– Evidence from India
This study analyses whether living in a locality with high crime against women affects the probability of early marriage — that is, marriage before the legal age of marriage of girls. Using a nationally-representative longitudinal dataset and tackling the potential endogeneity of local crime rates...
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.
– Resource rents, fiscal capacity and political institutions in developing economies
While it is recognised that the ability of states to raise revenues (i.e., fiscal capacity) is important for the provision of key public goods in less developed economies, it is less clear what its determinants are and what explains cross-country differences. We focus on the impact of natural...
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.
– Supply vs demand factors
This study estimates the relative importance of alternative supply and demand mechanisms in explaining the rise of female labor-force participation (FLFP) over the last 55 years in Mexico. The growth of FLFP in Mexico between 1960 and 2015 followed an S-shaped, with a considerable acceleration...
– Impact, Recovery and the Future
A key challenge for the post-COVID global economy is whether the disproportionate impact of the crisis on informal workers, who form the majority of the world’s workforce, will be acknowledged. Or whether harmful and negative stereotypes will persist.Today, despite the role of these essential...
Working Paper
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This paper analyses the effectiveness of tax-benefit systems in reducing poverty and inequality across 13 countries in the Global South. Using national survey data and tax-benefit microsimulation models from the SOUTHMOD project, we provide a cross-country perspective on the redistributive impact of...
Working Paper
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Companies in the oil, gas, and mining sectors face ever intensifying scrutiny over their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices and impacts: from civil society but also from investment funds and other stakeholders with ESG mandates. Companies with good practices—and the paper...
Working Paper
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While market mechanisms and private initiatives can deliver much for development, public action is also necessary to: maximize the economic benefits of the extractive industries; manage potentially large capital and revenues flows; minimize adverse environmental and social impacts; and steer the...
Working Paper
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This paper analyses the roles that states, civil society, and international actors can play in tackling the weak governance that sometimes leads to resources being used for private rather than public benefit. It discusses the corruption that bedevils licensing and commodities trading; and oil theft...
Working Paper
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We estimate structural, materials, and labour markups for the South African economy at the three-digit industry level for 2012–19. The fall in structural labour and materials markups found for the numerical majority of industries are generally isolated to smaller industries, with industries...
Working Paper
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We show that the Russia–Ukraine-war-induced changes in the international price of wheat affected political violence in Asia. Using data from 13 countries and more than four million cell-level observations, we show that a higher wheat price increases political violence in areas that are more suitable...
Working Paper
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– Indonesia and India compared
We examine the nature of labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach drawing from the job ladder framework. In the framework, we differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal and between formal, upper tier informal, and lower tier informal jobs. We...
Working Paper
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This paper argues for a change in government attitudes to their extractive industries: as enclaves useful primarily as revenue sources. This is too narrow a perspective: it fails to recognize the broader economic linkages that are invariably possible. Achieving greater economic impact requires...
Working Paper
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This paper analyses the risks facing resource-dependent countries. These include: (i) economic mismanagement (the ‘resource curse’); (ii) political mismanagement; (iii) environmental damage (climate change and the destruction of natural capital). It distinguishes ‘risk’ (which can be addressed...
Working Paper
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The extractives industries are highly controversial but remain vitally important in much of the developing world. This paper considers their role in reducing energy poverty and discusses scenarios for the future of the global markets for oil, gas, and metals (emphasizing the increasing importance of...
Background Note
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Over 60 years ago, Guy Orcutt and colleagues pioneered the use of microsimulation models in the social sciences to analyse the impact of social and economic policies. Although computational and data constraints initially hampered progress, these barriers were overcome and microsimulation modelling...
Blog
More than 960 million Indians will head to the polls in the world’s biggest election between April 19 and early June. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is seeking a third term in office. And the polls suggest it will achieve this objective.If one...
Displaying 80 of 8703 results