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Summer Issue 2021

Book | Deals and development in fragile and conflict-affected states – framework and policy guidebook

by Eric Werker and Kunal Sen

This framework utilizes business interests and the distribution of political power to understand the episodic nature of economic growth in fragile and conflict-affected states. The guidebook is designed to help advisers working with development agencies to analyse country context and design interventions with the goal of enabling positive growth episodes that reduce fragility.

Blogs

A summer reading list of our latest papers, articles, and books

by Timothy Shipp

At the UNU-WIDER offices here in Helsinki, Finland, the summer holidays are almost upon us. By my latest count, we have 25 new working papers and 12 new journal articles out this month, since we last shared our monthly newsletter on 31 May (you can subscribe here). I share here a handful of these works that easily deserve to be on your summer reading list. There is something for everyone.

Mozambique's difficult decade – three lessons to inform next steps

by Sam Jones and Finn Tarp

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 reduction.

Do resource rich economies have better or worse human development outcomes?

by Antonio Savoia and Kunal Sen

Although increasingly challenged, we often hear that being resource rich can adversely affect growth prospects. Here we concentrate instead on a lesser-known aspect: how resource rich economies fare in terms of education, health, income inequality, and poverty. The IMF classifies over 50 developing and emerging economies as resource rich.

Why countries best placed to handle the pandemic appear to have fared the worst

by Rachel M. Gisselquist and Andrea Vaccaro

During the first year of the pandemic, it was wealthier countries, with their comparatively stronger health systems, civil services, legal systems, and other public services, that suffered the highest rates of COVID-19. Indeed, countries rated to be best prepared to respond to public health threats such as pandemics – those with the greatest 'global health security' – had the most COVID-related fatalities.

Long-term research in Tanzania sheds light on the reasons rural households diversify their income

by Milla Nyyssölä

Researchers and policymakers have long asked whether rural households in Africa diversify their income to spread risk or by seizing opportunities to increase their earning potential. Long-term research in Tanzania shows that diversification is more often a choice rather than a necessity, with the potential for both wealthier and poorer households to benefit alike.

News

UNU-WIDER releases guidebook on economic growth in fragile contexts

UNU-WIDER has released a policy guidebook 'Deals and development in fragile and conflict-affected states'. The guidebook is designed to help advisers working with development agencies to analyse country context and design interventions with the goal of enabling positive growth that reduces fragility.

Three UNU-WIDER books in top five most accessed economics titles on Oxford Scholarship Online

According to a listing by Oxford University Press, three UNU-WIDER books are among its top five most visited economics titles during the past year (April 2020–March 2021). The three popular titles cover a broad range of knowledge for practitioners working on topics such as sustainable resource management, structural transformation, and gender equality. As with the bulk of UNU-WIDER publications, these most visited titles are available on full open access, free for everyone to download.

UNU-WIDER experts in key role in global roundtable process on extractives

Over the past eight months, various heads of state, ministers, and other stakeholders from around the world have participated in a dialogue to discuss the pressing issues and the future of the extractives sector. UNU-WIDER researchers Tony Addison and Alan Roe have played a key role in the process, which culminated in a global roundtable led by the UN Secretary-General on 25 May 2021.

New updates to the World Income Inequality Database (WIID)

The UNU-WIDER World Income Inequality Database ― widely known by its acronym, WIID ― provides the most comprehensive set of income inequality statistics available. It presents detailed information on income inequality for developed, developing, and transition countries. The newest version updates the 31 March 2021 release to include the most recent available data (see version note for details).

Events

Seminar | Kunal Sen gives the Keynote Address at the IRSA 16th Annual Conference

12-13 July 2021, online, Indonesia

Kunal Sen has been invited to give the Keynote Address at this year's Indonesian Regional Science Association's (IRSA) Annual Conference on 12 July. Professor Sen speaks on the main lessons from UNU-WIDER's project on 'The changing nature of work and inequality'.

Conference | Achieving Sustainable Development in the Least Developed Countries – LDC Future Forum

Postponed to October 2021, online, Finland

The Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are low-income countries that face severe structural impediments to sustainable development. These countries are highly vulnerable to economic and environmental shocks and have low levels of human assets. To help the LDCs address these specific challenges, the United Nations convenes a dedicated conference every ten years.

WIDER Development Conference | COVID-19 and development – effects and new realities for the Global South

6-8 September 2021, online

The 2021 WIDER Development Conference will take place online during 6-8 September 2021, with the aim of connecting research and policy communities around the world to discuss the effects of COVID-19 on development in the Global South, and how to move forward.

WIDER Working Paper Series

Working Paper

Forecasting recovery from COVID-19 using financial data – an application to Viet Nam

Working Paper

How far does the apple really fall from the tree? Practical guidance on measuring intergenerational mobility from a simulation framework

Working Paper

A macro–micro analysis of gender segregation and job quality in Latin America

Working Paper

The impact of COVID-19 on consumption poverty in Mozambique

Working Paper

Clientelism and development: is there a poverty trap?

Working Paper

Horizontal and intersecting inequalities in Mozambique
1997–2017

Working Paper

Clientelism, public goods provision, and governance

Working Paper

Young women’s transitions from education to the labour market in Ethiopia:
A gendered life-course perspective

Working Paper

How good are manufacturing jobs in Myanmar? Evidence from matched employer–employee data

Working Paper

The changing nature of work and earnings inequality in China

Working Paper

Informality and pension reforms in Bolivia – the case of Renta Dignida

Working Paper

Cash grants to manufacturers after Cyclone Idai – RCT evidence from Mozambique

Publications

Book | Social mobility in developing countries – concepts, methods, and determinants

edited by Vegard Iversen, Anirudh Krishna, and Kunal Sen

BOOK IN PRODUCTION — SCHEDULED FOR OCTOBER 2021 Social mobility — defined as the ability to move from a lower to a higher level of education or occupational status, or from a lower to a higher social class or income group — is the hope of economic development and the mantra of a good society.

Book | Inequality in the Developing World

edted by Carlos Gradín, Murray Leibbrandt, and Finn Tarp

OPEN ACCESS | Inequality has emerged as a key development challenge. It holds implications for economic growth and redistribution and translates into power asymmetries that can endanger human rights, create conflict, and embed social exclusion and chronic poverty. For these reasons, it underpins intense public and academic debates and has become a dominant policy concern within many countries and in all multilateral agencies.

Report | Survey on the school-to-work transition of technical and vocational training graduates in Mozambique – final report

by Sam Jones, Ricardo Santos, and Gimelgo Xirinda

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.

Journal Article | Occupational gender segregation in post-apartheid South Africa

by Carlos Gradín

OPEN ACCESS ON EARLY VIEW | This study shows that occupations in South Africa are segregated and stratified by gender. While some women (mostly Black and 'Coloured') overwhelmingly fill low-paying jobs, others (mostly White and Indian/Asian, but also Coloured) tend to fill higher-paying professional positions.

Journal Article | The political economy of the resource curse – a development perspective

by Antonio Savoia and Kunal Sen

OPEN ACCESS | This article reviews the recent literature on the developmental effects of resource abundance, assessing likely effects and channels with respect to key development outcomes. To date, this area has received less analysis, although it is relevant to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals agenda, as a significant number of the world's poor live in African resource-rich economies.

Journal Article | Stabbed in the back? Mandated political representation and murders

by Victoire Girard

This study provides the first country-wide research evidence that an affirmative action policy may induce a backlash. I exploit the timing of the implementation of castebased electoral quotas across and within the states of India.

Journal Article | Health-system equity, egalitarian democracy and COVID-19 outcomes – an empirical analysis

by Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati, Arusha Cooray, and Indra de Soysa

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a spate of studies showing a close connection between inequitable access to health care, welfare services, and adverse outcomes from the pandemic.

Journal Article | The corruption–growth relationship – Does the political regime matter?

by Shrabani Saha and Kunal Sen

OPEN ACCESS | Corruption is widely believed to have an adverse effect on the economic performance of a country. However, many East and Southeast Asian countries either achieved or currently are achieving impressively rapid economic growth despite widespread corruption – the so-called East Asian Paradox.

Photo by Agustin Diaz Gargiulo on Unsplash

Journal Article | Migrating out of mega-cities – evidence from Brazil

by Eva-Maria Egger

Traditional economic models predict rural to urban migration during the structural transformation of an economy. In middle-income countries, it is less clear which direction of migration to expect. In this article, the author shows that in Brazil as many people move out as into metropolitan cities and they mostly move to mid-sized towns.

Journal Article | The impact of indirect tax on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania

by Asiya Maskaeva, Zanda Bochkaeva, Joel Mmasa, and Mgeni Msafiri

THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study analyses the impacts of indirect tax benefit policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8.

Journal Article | Extending multidimensional poverty identification – from additive weights to minimal bundles

by Sam Jones

THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | 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.

Journal Article | Inequality by population groups and income sources – accounting for inequality changes in Spain during the recession

by Carlos Gradín

The author discusses a new approach which decomposes inequality into the contributions of population groups by income sources.

Background Note | Building tax data for research – the South African experience

by Amina Ebrahim and Aalia Cassim

In this note we share background on the South Africa tax data experience. We start by providing the context and setting of how the tax data came to be. Then, we share the lessons learnt in making the tax data available for research and conclude with some of the possibilities for the future of the tax data in South Africa and elsewhere.

Policy Brief | The economic gains of reducing the employment gender gap in Morocco

by Olivier Bargain and Maria C. Lo Bue

Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, including Morocco, currently record the lowest rates of female labour force participation (FLFP) in the world. These rates — between 20-30% in 2019 — appear substantially low in comparison to Western countries ...

Research Brief | Is technical and vocational education and training a solution for youth unemployment? 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.

Opportunities

Request for research proposals | Institutional legacies of violent conflict

UNU-WIDER is requesting research proposals on the Institutional legacies of violent conflict. Proposals for original research that speak to the core themes of this project and offer strong empirical or theoretical contributions will be considered. Extended submission deadline: 30 July 2021, 23:59 UTC+3

Vacancy | Research Fellow P-2

UNU-WIDER is looking for an outstanding individual with strong commitment and potential to support 'Building up efficient and fair tax systems – lessons based on administrative tax data' -project. Closing date: 3 August 2021, 23:59 UTC+3

Vacancy | Communications Team Assistant

UNU-WIDER is looking for an outstanding individual to join the institute’s Communication Team and assist with daily operations. Closing date: 15 July 2021, 23:59 UTC+3

Vacancy | Web Developer

UNU-WIDER is looking for an outstanding individual with strong web and systems development skills to join the institute’s ICT Team. Open until position is filled.

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