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Publications (341)
Book Chapter
– A global look at the first year of the pandemic
From the book:
How States Respond to Crisis
Book Chapter
– The undermining role of vertical health policies in health systems
From the book:
How States Respond to Crisis
Book Chapter
From the book:
How States Respond to Crisis
– Pandemic Governance Across the Global South
BOOK IN PRODUCTION | SCHEDULED FOR PUBLICATION FEBRUARY 2025We expect the state to matter in times of crisis to better provide for and protect their populations. But how is it, precisely, that the quality of the state matters? This book speaks to this question through comparative study of how...
Book Chapter
From the book:
How States Respond to Crisis
– 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...
Rising public debt in Africa, exacerbated by multiple shocks and limited fiscal space, poses a significant challenge to the region’s development. Half of the low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are in debt distress or at high risk of it, as calls for international action, such as...
South Africa's unemployment rate stands at a staggering 32.1%—one of the highest in the world. Coupled with an alarming poverty rate, where nearly half of the population lives below the poverty line, the socioeconomic landscape is dire. Amidst these challenges, the special COVID-19 Social Relief 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.
COVID-19 pandemic, household welfare and diversification strategies of smallholder farmers in Uganda
Agricultural activities in many sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are subject to various risk factors that the COVID-19 compounds. Earlier studies on the effect of COVID-19 on smallholders neglect the issue of comparison with non-farm households. The study uses micro-level household datasets to...
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
In recent years, governments worldwide witnessed a surge in debt levels. According to the Institute of International Finance, global debt reached a staggering USD 315 trillion in early 2024, with sizable increases in emerging market countries. This increase in borrowing, at least by governments, was...
– Confronting a new economic reality
The 2023 Annual Lecture was delivered by Pinelopi (Penny) Goldberg. She spoke about her research on the topic of globalization.As the title of the lecture implies, this study is about globalization in crisis. Readers are no doubt aware that recent years have seen significant shifts in global...
– A guide for billionaires seeking impact
Where should billionaires spend their money if they want to make a positive difference? I spoke to the experts in our network and took a look at recent UN flagship reports to gain insights into this critical question.In 2021, Elon Musk made a claim on social media that he would sell Tesla shares 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.
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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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...
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.
– 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
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
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...
– 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...
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...
Our Institute’s expansive international research contributions, consisting of over 800 WIDER Working Papers in the 2019–23 work programme, delve deep into the development challenges the world faces. In the following country profiles, we pivot our focus towards Ecuador and Indonesia, serving as...
At UNU-WIDER, we undertake our work explicitly within the context of an emergent strategy designed to maximize the impact of our research findings. We operate based on a theory of change that outlines how research eventually translates into improved development outcomes for the world’s most...
Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have become a symbol of national success and a means for global, commercial and geopolitical influence. But how well do they contribute to national development goals? Furthermore, global decarbonization threatens the future of many fossil fuel-financed SWFs. Here, we...
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
– 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...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from countermeasures in Germany
We study how the stringency of policy measures to counter the COVID-19 pandemic affects individuals’ trust in formal institutions. Drawing on micro-level panel data from Germany spanning an 18-month period from the onset of the pandemic, we show that, on average, there is a pronounced negative...
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...
Pursuing the global development agenda will require genuine commitment from political leaders and significant stepping-up of government efforts. But, above all, it will require increased financial resources. Where will these resources come from?We are at the mid-point of the 2030 Agenda for...
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...
Working Paper
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This paper studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on formal sector employment in Uganda. Utilizing employee-level administrative tax data from the Uganda Revenue Authority, we describe the dynamics of employment as the pandemic evolved, seeking to better understand the various coping strategies...
Working Paper
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– Simulation results for Zambia
The COVID-19 pandemic increased public debt and changed the income distribution in many countries. We use a numerical simulation approach to derive optimal nonlinear marginal tax rates for the pre-crisis and crisis periods. We contribute to the literature by examining optimal tax rates numerically...
Journal Article
– Insights from survey and tax administrative data in Zambia
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study examines how formal firms have been impacted by and recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, by drawing on two distinct but complementary data sources. This is the first attempt to use both survey and tax administrative data to measure the impact of the...
Blog
Fragile and least developed countries have had their development assistance cut drastically, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. For instance, net official development assistance to sub-Saharan African countries has shrunk by 7.8% compared to 2021. And...
Blog
The South African constitution is considered progressive and transformative in intention due to its inclusion of socioeconomic rights, such as the right to education, food, and healthcare. However, some of these rights are qualified by the availability of state resources, which places an imperative...
– Sobering insights from the 27th WIDER Annual Lecture
With several violent conflicts around the world weighing heavily on our minds, we attended the 27th WIDER Annual Lecture. Dr. Pinelopi Goldberg’s lecture on the potentially catastrophic consequences of a deglobalization movement are extremely relevant. In her lecture, titled ‘Globalization in crisis...
Blog
– New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Today, October 17th is the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (you already knew that, right?). In new analysis for UNU-WIDER, we assess progress towards the global poverty-related SDGs, specifically monetary poverty, undernutrition, child and maternal mortality, and access to clean...
Despite the rapid expansion of social protection across the Global South in recent decades, the ILO (2021: 19) estimates that more than half of the global population still have no access to any form of protection against poverty vulnerability and social exclusion. Globally, the share of aid that...
The 1980s are sometimes referred to as the ‘lost decade’ for development. Many countries in the Global South experienced weak or no improvement in poverty indicators. Our projections are equally dire for the current decade and prospects for the SDGs unless action is taken. We project a decade of...
The annual WIDER Development Conference held this year in Oslo concentrated on domestic revenue mobilization (DRM). The 2.5-day hybrid event emphasized both the progress made and unresolved problems in increasing economic autonomy and improving development prospects in the Global South.The...
Globalization is in retreat. Trade tensions between China and the United States are escalating, as illustrated by bans to the trade of semiconductor chips. The pandemic exacerbated an already difficult economic reality, raising new concerns about the resilience of global supply chains. Further...
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.
– High poverty and low trust
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, sub-Saharan African countries faced the dilemma of how to minimize viral transmission without adversely affecting the poor. This study proposes an index of lockdown readiness, taking into account housing conditions and income security, and analyses how this...
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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– New projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
In this paper, we present new projections for a range of global poverty-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically, extreme monetary poverty, undernutrition, stunting, child mortality, maternal mortality, and access to clean water and basic sanitation.Our projections, based on...
Working Paper
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– An examination of the alleviating impact of tax and benefit measures
This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related tax-benefit measures in Viet Nam. The focus is on the initial phase of the crisis in 2020. The study delves into how the pandemic affected disposable incomes, examining the differences across the income distribution and impacts...
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...
– But not without some unintended results
About three years have passed since the South African government introduced the COVID-19 Temporary Employer-Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) in response to the pandemic and associated lockdown regulations. Given the extent of unemployment in South Africa even prior to the pandemic, the policy’s primary...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from South Africa
Wage subsidies served as a dominant labour market policy response around the world to mitigate job losses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, no causal evidence of their effects exists for developing countries.We use unique panel labour force survey data and exploit a temporary...
Working Paper
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– Legacies of the Great Recession and the consequences of the ‘trust crisis’
This paper investigates how persistent changes in trust caused by the Great Recession have affected how governments and citizens across Europe responded to the next global crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic.We show that increases in individualism and mistrust towards institutions caused by individual...
– Research evidence for transforming economies, states, and societies
As we cross the mid-point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UNU-WIDER culminates a 5-year research programme on Transforming economies, states, and societies. The synthesis of the most salient research contributions made is organized in this report by three universal aspirations...
Blog
In celebration of South Africa's Women's Month, SA-TIED is spotlighting the women driving change within the field of economics. Through the ‘Breaking Barriers, Building Economies: Women in Economic Policy’ campaign, we highlight their achievements, challenges, and invaluable contributions. Carol...
The post-COVID-19 economic recovery and Russia’s war with Ukraine have caused some natural resource prices to reach new highs. Although forecasting the price of internationally-traded commodities is notoriously difficult, recent estimates suggest that prices will remain high through 2024. The high...
Working Paper
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This study evaluates which type of benefit—a universal benefit, a proxy mean-tested benefit, or a categorical benefit— better cushions the poverty effects of income shocks in a developing economy. We compare the effectiveness of the three benefit schemes on poverty first conceptually and then by...
Blog
The rise of resilience policy in sustainable development Climate resilience is an increasingly popular response to development in a time of polycrisis or permacrisis. From the IPCC to the OECD, World Bank, and UNDP, the core notion of 'resilience' counters radical uncertainty and social-ecological...
Blog
Nearly half the working-age population and nearly two-thirds of the unemployed live in areas designated as townships under apartheid spatial laws. Originally developed as 'labour dormitories', they have been challenging to develop as more vibrant local economies and residential areas. What can 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.
– Exploring a puzzling relationship in the early stages of the pandemic
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was wealthier countries with stronger institutions that suffered the highest numbers of cases and fatalities. Many weaker countries were instead praised for more effective pandemic response. What explains this seeming puzzle? We re-consider these...
Working Paper
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– Findings from national labour surveys in five Latin American countries
This paper provides a comparative summary of recent national statistics from five Latin American countries on employment losses and gains during the peak COVID-19 years compared with pre-pandemic levels. As part of its work on the impact of the pandemic on informal workers, the Women in Informal...
Working Paper
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– Lessons from relief for comprehensive social protection
This paper considers the implications of COVID-19 relief measures for the building and extension of comprehensive and universal social protection systems. It highlights three key areas emerging from the crisis, which are likely to affect the shape of social protection systems moving forward. These...
Working Paper
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Throughout 2021, fiscal stimulus packages were introduced to jump-start the COVID-19 ‘post-pandemic’ economic recovery process. While calls for economic recovery packages that promise to ‘build back better’ have come from many directions, the under-allocation of recovery resources directed at...
Working Paper
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The current context of the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the most vulnerable socio-economic groups to greater financial risk and thus could lead to exacerbating income inequality. The crisis creates an opportunity to demand further structural and systemic reforms for redistributive justice.Our paper...
Apart from a ‘badly flawed’ national election, insecurity, and mass exodus of its young talents to the Global North (locally known as Japa), a paralyzing debt burden is among the existential threats facing Nigeria, Africa’s largest and most populous economy. Between 1999—when democracy returned—and...
Blog
'Our window to avoid climate catastrophe is closing rapidly, and yet there are still many reasons for optimism.' This statement sums up a recent third event in a series that examines local and international progress towards the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, held at Helsinki City...
Working Paper
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– The sub-Saharan experience
COVID-19 cases were first confirmed in March 2020 in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. These countries put in place several stringent measures, including lockdowns, to contain the spread of the virus. Various policies were also rolled out to address the disruption in economic activities, to mitigate...
– Welcome to the three new Latin American teams
How would progressive income taxation affect income inequality in Bolivia? What are the costs and benefits of implementing a state pension in Colombia? Which social protection policies reduce income poverty in Peru? In addition to the nine pre-existing countries with their own tailored tax-benefit...
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...
Working Paper
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– Insights from Kenyan agricultural platforms
Women play a critical yet under-researched role in global digital agri-food value chains, especially in smallholder production, which affects how they are able to economically upgrade (improve crop yields and product quality, and increase product diversification). Research suggests that women’s...
Book Chapter
– Trends, policies, and controversies
Reducing poverty and inequality and promoting inclusive growth are fundamental to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), approved by the UN General Assembly in September 2015. The first target of SDG1 is to eradicate extreme poverty, while SDG10 focuses on reducing inequality within...
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 Ghana
In this study, we provide causal evidence of the immediate and near-term impact of stringent COVID-19 lockdown policies on employment outcomes, using Ghana as a case study. We take advantage of a specific policy setting, in which strict stay-at-home orders were issued and enforced in two spatially...
Blog
UK economic forecasts have improved markedly since the September 2022 mini-budget. The economic recession may now be more shallow and public borrowing lower than previously expected. However, faced with persistently high inflation and continued uncertainty caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine...
Working Paper
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– COVID-19 and climate change
Terrorist and other types of armed groups often exploit natural and human-made disasters and emergencies to advance their causes. This paper studies how some armed groups have responded to two recent global emergencies—climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines the messaging and actions...
Blog
– UNU-WIDER Visiting PhD and Scholar programmes
Every year about 20 visitors come to Helsinki to find a new home at UNU-WIDER in our Visiting Scholars and PhD Fellowship programmes. Although their stay is only three months, the connections they make last much longer, with past visitors’ continued engagement through our research opportunities...
– A change in environment for a new perspective
After two years of COVID-19 restrictions, I was thrilled to receive an acceptance letter to UNU-WIDER's Visiting PhD Fellowship Programme. Until this point, most of my studies had been conducted online, so a change in environment seemed like a promising way to motivate me to push through my...
The importance of domestic revenue mobilization and taxation for sustainable development is widely acknowledged in global development discussions, but for real change to happen the amounts of development aid and political engagement need to live up to commitments.Key factors of development...
Blog
The toll of the COVID-19 pandemic is still being assessed. Meanwhile, new variants continue to threaten as the reservoir of infected people remains large enough for mutations to proliferate. Excess deaths, a global measure, are estimated at 14.9 million for 2020–21 by the World Health Organization...
Working Paper
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– Investigating the effectiveness of COVID-19 aid in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Drawing from a growing body of literature on development aid in fragile contexts, this paper investigates the effectiveness of COVID-19 aid in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The paper uses the OECD’s Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations 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.
– Livelihoods and wellbeing in India during COVID-19
This article studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gendered dimensions of employment and mental health among urban informal-sector workers in Delhi, India.First, the study finds that men’s employment declined by 84 percentage points during the pandemic relative to pre-pandemic...
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 view from below
This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related policy measures on livelihoods in urban South Africa. Using qualitative research methods, we analyse two rounds of semi-structured phone interviews, conducted between June and September 2020 in the township of Khayelitsha, Cape...
Working Paper
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– Lessons from more than two decades of research
The objective of this paper is to focus on fragility research findings and examine what works or does not work in development aid and development cooperation in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. We draw on our own research findings as well as country-level studies. We examine questions of aid...
Working Paper
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– A rapid scoping review
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries enacted tax and social protection measures to help mitigate the economic hardship faced by individuals and households. This experience underscores the need to better understand the impact of such programmes on incomes and poverty during crises...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Ecuadorian administrative data
This paper aims to assess the extent to which top earners in Ecuador were affected by the COVID-19 crisis compared to other segments of the population.Our analysis uses administrative data for individuals affiliated to social security between January 2019 and December 2021. We identify the top 10, 1...
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...
2022 is already a record-breaker in the number of climate change-related events, and developing countries must now pay for the repairs and remediation needed to combat the consequences. Although the international community pledged support at the UN Climate Conference (COP27), the costs of shoring up...
– Meet our tax-benefit microsimulation team in Rwanda!
How can Global South countries improve their tax and social protection systems? One way is to take advantage of tools that help assess the impact of different policies. Rwanda is the latest country to join the SOUTHMOD collaboration, which will enable UNU-WIDER and Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) to...
Simon Kuznets’ pipe dream was to have economic inequality data that rarely existed when he was writing. What are the pipe dreams of today’s development economists? How about a rigorous development economics book, or set of books, you could read in a spare hour or two? A book that provides an...
Journal Article
– Industrial aspirations and reverse labour migration
The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated processes of labour transition from industrial work to the informal economy, which have always characterized the life of the working poor. This study explores this kind of reverse transition, that is, when the Lewisian dream of having an industrial job comes to 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.
– Evidence from Ecuador
By combining household survey data before and during the COVID-19 pandemic with detailed tax-benefit simulations, this paper quantifies the distributional effects of COVID-19 in Ecuador and the role of tax-benefit policies in mitigating the immediate impact of the economic shocks. Our results show a...
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...
Working Paper
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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...
Working Paper
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We analyse the social protection policy response to COVID-19 and its impact on household incomes in Uruguay during 2020 and 2021, based on static microsimulation methods. From the onset of the crisis, the Uruguayan government implemented adjustments to existing social protection policies as well as...
Working Paper
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This study posits that pandemics should be regarded as complex, open-ended phenomena that cannot be reduced to biology and epidemiology. The research assesses Ghana’s effectiveness in governing the COVID-19 pandemic contrary to apocalyptic predictions. This paper critiques Ghana’s responses to the...
Working Paper
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– Looking for opportunities to strengthen trust in government and tax compliance by analysing citizens' perception of governance
The COVID-19 pandemic showed that many developing countries could not respond effectively to crises due to their limited capacity to diversify their social protection responses. Social protection systems depend mainly on government tax revenue capacity. Raising domestic revenue still represents a...
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...
From the book:
The 1918–20 Influenza Pandemic
The influenza pandemic of 1918 (the Spanish Flu) is by far the greatest humanitarian disaster caused by an infectious disease in modern history. It infected over a quarter of the world’s population and killed over 50 million people. The brunt of the pandemic was borne by countries in the periphery...
– A Retrospective in the Time of COVID-19
The pandemic of 1918–20 — commonly known as the Spanish flu — infected over a quarter of the world's population and killed over fifty million people. It is by far the greatest humanitarian disaster caused by an infectious disease in modern history. Epidemiologists and health scientists often draw on...
Working Paper
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– The political economy of compliance
This paper explores the link between trust in government, policy-making, and compliance. It focuses on a specific channel whereby citizens who are convinced that a policy is worthwhile are more motivated to comply with it. This in turn reduces the government’s cost of implementing a policy and may...
Working Paper
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– Describing and explaining armed groups’ response to the pandemic in the Middle East
As COVID-19 spread worldwide, armed groups in control of territory were called to address the health emergency. However, our knowledge in this regard is limited. Specifically, it remains poorly understood why different armed groups responded to the crisis differently. Recognizing this lacuna, this...
Working Paper
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– Exploring scalability through targeted versus universalist approaches
With the expansion of social protection measures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, considerations both old and new have surfaced regarding targeted versus universalist approaches. This study focuses on how social protection coverage before the pandemic influences the extent of targeted versus...
Working Paper
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The COVID-19 pandemic drastically affected household incomes around the world. In developed economies, pre-pandemic tax–benefit policies and emergency transfers mitigated to a large extent the negative income shock. However, less is known about the effect of government intervention on household...
Working Paper
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– Challenges and opportunities for sub-Saharan Africa
Effective domestic revenue mobilization has gained renewed urgency, especially in the light of the need to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. In taxation debates, the ‘informal sectors’ have hitherto been assumed to be a part of the problem and implicitly mistaken for lucrative tax bases. First, I...
Blog
Early in October 2022, international and Colombian researchers gathered together for three days at the UNIANDES campus, located at the foot of the impressive Monserrate in Bogotá, Colombia. They were there to discuss their latest advances in inequality research. This was the second WIDER Development...
Blog
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments financed more than 5000 fiscal support policies worldwide in 2020–21. The pandemic response is an example of how governments react to a major covariate shock —an often unforeseen shock with adverse effects on populations and major consequences for...
Blog
For several decades, UNU-WIDER has actively worked on pathfinding and groundbreaking research on inequalities. We host one of the most extensive collections of income inequality statistics in the world freely available and updated annually. I have written previously about how the institute was...
Blog
Developing countries will be predominantly urban by 2030. While urbanization is historically associated with development and broad-based social mobility, its effects on social mobility in cities of the Global South are more variable and less uniformly optimistic. Improving lives for the urban poor...
Blog
Russia’s war in Ukraine may reach a stalemate as neither side appears in reach of a military victory. Unless a settlement can be agreed, a frozen conflict may emerge, which will delay economic recovery in Ukraine. This will also extend the cost of living crisis around the world. In February 2022...
Working Paper
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Agricultural activities in many African countries are bedevilled by a range of risk factors. Using micro-level household datasets from a range of countries in Africa, we examine the drivers of agricultural risks, while exploring the role of context as well as the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic
Wage subsidies have served as a primary labour market policy used around the world to mitigate job losses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In South Africa, where unemployment is among the highest globally, the Temporary Employer–Employee Relief Scheme supported millions of workers in a far...
– One of the best global training programmes in tax research
Across Africa, governments are now waking up to the fact that taxation targets or economic development goals will not be met without policies that are based on scientific evidence. More effective revenue collection is required to achieve broad-based growth and fiscal sustainability. This paradigm...
Government responsiveness is an integral feature of representative democracy. Its importance could be amplified in times of crisis, especially if citizens cannot rely on market actors for help. Governments can soften the impacts of negative shocks to the status quo, or exponentiate them by their...
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 Viet Nam
In view of the detrimental effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on household welfare, most countries implemented economic stimulus aid packages to support households. The extent to which these packages mitigated the pandemic’s adverse effects on households is not just an intriguing question for researchers...
Working Paper
pdf
– A case of domestic workers in Delhi
Studies on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic have demonstrated that poor women have been the worst sufferers in terms of pay cuts and job losses. Women are the hardest hit also at the household level. They have to bear the brunt of constrained household budgets and have also encountered increasing...
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