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WIDERAngle

May 2022

 
 
 
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WIDER Development Conference | The puzzle of peace – towards inclusive development in fragile contexts
Photos, slides, and videos are now available!
 
Catch up on anything you missed from the insightful sessions on peace, security, unrest, and the humanitarian fallout of conflict in different regions across the world. The programme included a keynote presentation by Sir Tim Besley and panel discussions on peacebuilding challenges and on post-conflict recovery. 300+ academics, policy practitioners, and development specialists — including from the United Nations, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, the World Bank and other international organisations — joined the programme. 
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Blogs
 
Photo by Agence Olloweb on Unsplash
Putting it all together – highlights from the puzzle of peace
by Laura Saavedra-Lux
 
One of the most acute challenges to development today is the persistence of violent conflict, and the struggle to promote effective states that can maintain peace after armed conflict ends. In an attempt to better understand the issue, and work toward research-based policy solutions, UNU-WIDER invited experts who work on violent conflict ...
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Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash
 
Solving the puzzle of peace – overcoming the curse of Finland
by Tim Phillips
 
At The puzzle of peace conference in Helsinki, Adnan Khan, Chief Economist at the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, lamented what he called the ‘Curse of Finland’. The Curse was a theme of the panel I moderated ...
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Photo by Maksym Tymchyk on Unsplash
 
Ukraine: war, energy, and net zero
by Alan R. Roe
 
Just over seven months ago the United Nations convened its 26th Climate Change Conference (COP-26) in Glasgow, with the world nervously emerging from the pandemic. Even before that, energy prices were already ticking up — a trend that accelerated when Russia invaded Ukraine. 
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Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash
 
Could the war in Ukraine encourage Western leaders to finally deal with shadow finance?
by Johnny Flentø
 
'I say to the Russian oligarchs and the corrupt leaders who bilked billions of dollars off this violent regime: no more… We are coming for your ill-begotten gains.' – Joe Biden at the 1 March 2022, State of the Union Address
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Photo by kyran low on Unsplash
 
Can access to finance spur entrepreneurship in Indian informal sector?
by Ira N. Gang, Rajesh Raj S.N. and Kunal Sen
 

Credit constraints, a consequence of the widespread failure of credit markets in developing countries, are widely regarded as a key constraint to entrepreneurship. Using 2010-11 and 2015-16 National Sample Survey data, this article shows that policy actions ...

 
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Photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash
 
Behind the scenes – meet our tax-benefit microsimulation team in Viet Nam!
by Anna Toppari
 

How can Vietnamese policymakers improve their policy choices related to social protection and tax policies? Who are the experts providing evidence on different policy scenarios and their pros and cons to local decision makers? 

 
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News
 
UNU-WIDER experts and the WIDER Development Conference featured in the media 
 
Kalle Hirvonen, Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER, was interviewed by YLE for a news article published on 10 March 2022 on the effects of the Ukraine war on global food security. UNU-WIDER Senior Research Fellow Patricia Justino was interviewed by the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE on the link between the rising food prices and the war in Ukraine. 
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Project in focus | Institutional legacies of violent conflict
 
Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash
Working Paper

Wartime governance and state-building trajectories in post-conflict societies

by Patricia Justino

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Working Paper

Revisiting the links between economic inequality and political violence – the role of social mobilization

by Patricia Justino

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Photo by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash
Working Paper

The legacies of armed conflict: insights from stayees and returning forced migrants

by Isabel Ruiz and Carlos Vargas-Silva

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Photo by DAVE NETTO on Unsplash
Working Paper

The social and political consequences of wartime sexual violence – new evidence from list experiments in three conflict-affected populations

by Carlo Koos and Richard Traunmüller

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Photo by Flavia Carpio on Unsplash
Working Paper

Community organization and armed group behaviour – evidence from Colombia

by Margarita Gáfaro, Ana María Ibáñez, and Patricia Justino

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Photo by John Rourke on Unsplash
Working Paper

An exploration of the association between fuel subsidies and fuel riots

by Neil McCulloch, Davide Natalini, 

Naomi Hossain, and Patricia Justino

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Photo by Joshua Hanson on Unsplash
Working Paper

The legacy of conflict: aggregate evidence from Sierra Leone

by Tillman Hönig

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Photo by Edrece Stansberry on Unsplash
Working Paper

Do pandemics lead to rebellion? Policy responses to COVID-19, inequality, and protests in the USA

by Francesco Iacoella, Patricia Justino, and Bruno Martorano

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Photo by Carlos Andres Gomez on Unsplash
Working Paper

The effects of wartime institutions on households’ ability to cope with shocks – evidence for Colombia

by Ana María Ibáñez et al.

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Events
 
 
WIDER Seminar | Jari Eloranta presents at the WIDER Seminar Series
8 June 2022, online
 

Jari Eloranta is a professor of economic history at the University of Helsinki. He has a dissertation in economic history from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, on 'The Demand for External Security by Domestic Choices: Military Spending as an Impure Public Good among Eleven European States, 1920-1938.'

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Photo by Pexels / Karen Laårk Boshoff
 
WIDER Seminar | Leonard Wantchekon on externalities of colonial schools and social mobility
17 June 2022, online
 
Leonard Wantchekon is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, as well as Associated Faculty in Economics. A scholar with diverse interests, Wantchekon has made substantive and methodological contributions to the fields of Political Economy ...
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Photo by Pexels / Karen Laårk Boshoff
 
WIDER Seminar | Miri Stryjan on loan repayment flexibility and firm profits: experimental evidence from Uganda
22 June 2022, online
 
We examine how key aspects of the most common form of financing – debt – may inhibit the expansion of small enterprises in developing countries. Growing a business entails learning and risk taking, as project returns to investment can start low but increase over time, or be uncertain. 
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Original photo by Marc Schulte on Unsplash
 
WIDER Seminar | Shreyasee Das on the marriage market consequences of the Bhopal Gas Disaster
30 June 2022, online
 
Industrial disasters, such as chemical leaks and oil spills, could bring large-scale destruction to the affected region with devastating effects on individual health, livelihood, and the environment. Literature thus far has focused on the impact of these disasters on human capital formation. 
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Publications
 
The developer's dilemma – structural transformation, inequality dynamics, and inclusive growth
 
Book | The developer’s dilemma – structural transformation, inequality dynamics, and inclusive growth
edited by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Kunal Sen, Andy Sumner and Arief Anshory Yusuf
 
FORTHCOMING  | Developing countries seek inclusive economic development. Yet, this is at odds with Kuznets’ hypothesis that economic development puts upward pressure on income inequality. We explore the developer’s dilemma, between structural transformation and income inequality.
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Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash
 
Journal Article | Participation of charity beneficiaries
by Daniel Grieco and Francesco Bripi
 
OPEN ACCESS | Anecdotal evidence suggests that involving beneficiaries in charity decision-making ensures better governance processes. This study provides the first experimental test of the effects of beneficiaries’ participation in the decision of how to spend a charity's funds.
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Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash
 
Journal Article | Promoting education under distortionary taxation – equality of opportunity versus welfarism
by Pertti Haaparanta et al.
 
OPEN ACCESS ON EARLY VIEW  |  A common claim in the policy discourse is that a government wishing to achieve equality of opportunity should use public provision of education for equalization of opportunities rather than income taxation, which only equalizes incomes.
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Photo by Mayur Deshpande on Unsplash
 
Journal Article | Effects of peers and rank on cognition, preferences, and personality
by Utteeyo Dasgupta, Subha Mani, Smriti Sharma, and Saurabh Singhal
 
OPEN ACCESS | We exploit the variation in admission cutoffs across colleges at a leading Indian university to estimate the causal effects of enrolling in a selective college on cognitive attainment, economic preferences, and Big Five personality traits.
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Photo by Trey Gibson on Unsplash
 
Journal Article | Veto power and coalition formation in the commons – an experiment
by Oussama Rhouma, Klarizze Anne Puzon, and Marc Willinger
 

We propose a five-player common-pool resource (CPR) game with endogenous coalition formation. We show that the level of extraction from the CPR depends on the size of each coalition formed and on the final coalition structure. These predictions are tested in a laboratory experiment. 

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Photo by VLLI on Flickr
 
Policy Brief | Boosting mineral revenues in Zambia – policy options for a sustainable fiscal regime
by Andrew Mwaba and Steve Kayizzi-Mugerwa
 

This brief provides concrete proposals on how Zambia's government could create a robust fiscal regime to achieve a steady flow of mineral revenue and encourage increased local participation in mining — while ensuring environmental sustainability.

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Opportunities
 
Call for papers | Annual Jobs and Development conference
 
The 6th IZA/World Bank/NJD/UNU-WIDER Jobs and Development Conference takes place 14-15 December in Cape Town on the challenge of creating better jobs in developing countries. The event focuses on policy-relevant research, applicable to identifying solutions to jobs challenges in low- and middle-income countries. The deadline for applications is 1 July 2022.
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Request for research proposals | Analysis on firms and taxation using micro data from Uganda
 
UNU-WIDER and Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) are requesting research proposals, taking advantage of the URA firm panel, that will improve the understanding of the impacts of taxation on firms in the Global South. Researchers with successful proposals will gain access to the anonymized data in the secure research lab located in URA, Kampala, Uganda, premises. Proposals from individuals (or groups of individuals) as well as non-profit organizations are welcome. Submission deadline: 27 June 2022, 23:59 UTC+3.
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Vacancies | Research Fellow (P-2) – 2 positions
 
UNU-WIDER is hiring two Research Fellows in Pretoria, South Africa.
As Research Fellow you would contribute to the research and management of our Southern African – Towards Inclusive Economic Development (SA-TIED) programme which builds critical bridges between research and policy in South Africa. Submission deadline: 30 June 2022
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Vacancy | Associate Programme Officer (NPSA)
 

UNU-WIDER is hiring an Associate Programme Officer in Pretoria, South Africa.
As Associate Programme Officer, you would play a key role around project management and stakeholder relationships in our SA-TIED programme, which builds critical bridges between research and policy in South Africa. Submission deadline: 7 June 2022

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Vacancy | Operations Manager (NO-A)
 

UNU-WIDER is hiring an Operations Manager in Helsinki, Finland.
As Operations Manager, you would be part of our global Administration team, and leading the Helsinki based procurement, travel, finance, asset management and administration teams. You would be accountable for their service provision, transactions, and advice to clients for operational tasks and services under the teams mandate. Submission deadline is 7 June 2022.

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