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April 2024

The world at crossroads – securing the future generations | WIDER Development Conference

14–16 May 2024, Maputo, Mozambique

Across the three days of the conference, experts confront the interconnected issues of conflict, inequality, and fiscal space gaining valuable insights that directly inform and shape UNU-WIDER's current work programme. Renowned researchers and policymakers convene to engage in thoughtful debates and discussions, creating a dynamic forum for critical discourse.

Blogs

How India’s economy has fared under ten years of Narendra Modi

by Kunal Sen

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.

Affirmative action in Brazil’s higher education system

by Rodrigo Oliveira, Edson Severnini, and Alei Santos

Evidence from Brazil shows how affirmative action students in the higher education system adjust their behaviour to catch up with initially higher-performing privileged students.

Time to rethink theory on the role of finance in development – the new structural financial economics framework

by Justin Yifu Lin, Jiajun Xu, Zirong Yang, and Yilin Zhang

The primary role of finance is to serve the ‘real economy’—the part of the economy that produces goods and services. Yet in practice, the financial sector often excessively indulges in speculative activities rather than performing its main functions, such as channeling saving for productive investments and diversifying risks.

Studying food price dynamics in Mozambique – insights from the field

by Firmino Guiliche, Elina Penttinen, and Naira Materula

In Mozambique, analysing how and why food prices change is crucial. Understanding the dynamics of price formation is fundamental to mitigate the adverse effects of price volatility to the economy. Detailed data on the prices of key food items in Mozambique is, however, limited in both quantity (coverage) and quality (reliability), and little is known about the evolution of prices outside major urban centers.

Analysing monetary policy communication in South Africa

by Katrien Smuts

In monetary policy communication, every word carries weight. Consider this scenario: the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) articulates its stance to anchor inflation expectations, yet this message undergoes subtle transformations when translated by the media and financial analysts. How do divergent narratives influence the outcome?

NEWS

UNU-WIDER research cited in major UN DESA and EU Tax Observatory reports

24 April 2024 | The 2023 Financing for Sustainable Development report and Global Tax Evasion Report 2024 include findings from UNU-WIDER research on illicit financial flows, structural transformation, and international monetary system. The 2024 Financing for Sustainable Development report highlights UNU-WIDER's Government Revenue Dataset (GRD) as a prominent source for revenue statistics.

EVENTS

Assessing the macroeconomic impact of power outages in South Africa with Richard Kima

6 May 2024

Richard Kima, a UNU-WIDER Research Fellow, presents work in progress on 'Estimating the Macroeconomic Costs of Power Outages in South Africa' at a University of KwaZulu-Natal's Macroeconomics Research Unit Seminar.

Kunal Sen gives the 2024 annual Sadli Lecture—Broken Ladders? Labour Market Inequality in Indonesia and India

8 May 2024

UNU-WIDER Director Kunal Sen gives the 18th Sadli Lecture on Broken Ladders? Labour Market Inequality in Indonesia and India as a part of the annual lecture series of the Australian National University (ANU) Indonesia Project. The event is hybrid, with attendance possible online or in-person in Depok, Indonesia at the Universitas Indonesia.

WIDER Development Conference | The world at crossroads – securing the future generations

14–16 May 2024

Julien Wolfersberger on Climate immobility in sub-Saharan Africa

12 June 2024

Migration is often perceived as a key tool to adapt to climate change. However, in many countries, households face liquidity constraints that prevent them from migrating when climate shocks occur. This generates a spatial misallocation of labour that impedes economic development. The goal of this paper is to quantify the cost of these misallocations. To do this, we focus on sub-Saharan Africa, a region heavily concerned by the impacts of global warming and that displays high fertility rates.

WIDER Working Papers

Working Paper

The potential of universal basic income schemes to mitigate shocks – comparing the performance of universal basic income in Uganda and Zambia during COVID-19

by Enrico Nichelatti, Maria Jouste, and Pia Rattenhuber

Working Paper

Watts happening to work? The labour market effects of South Africa’s electricity crisis

by Haroon Bhorat and Timothy Köhler

Working Paper

Falling tariffs: implications of globalization-induced tariff reductions on firms, workers, and tax revenues

by Nora Strecker, Georg U. Thunecke, and Benedikt Zoller-Rydzek

Working Paper

Analysis of household demand patterns using household data
Re-thinking the use of unit values or community prices

by Aimable Nsabimana

Working Paper

What traders know: the (mis)perceptions of formal and informal cross-border traders

by Paolo Falco and Eleanor Wiseman

Working Paper

Indirect rule: armed groups and customary chiefs in eastern DRC

by Soeren J. Henn, Gauthier Marchais, Christian Mastaki Mugaruka, and Raúl Sánchez de la Sierra

Publications

Book | New Structural Financial Economics – A Framework for Rethinking the Role of Finance in Serving the Real Economy

by Justin Yifu Lin, Jiajun Xu, Zirong Yang, and Yilin Zhang

OPEN ACCESS | The study proposes an alternative framework for rethinking the role of finance in serving the real economy from the perspective of New Structural Financial Economics.

Report | UNU-WIDER Annual Report 2023

by UNU-WIDER

The 2023 UNU-WIDER Annual Report celebrates the end of the 2019–23 work programme. UNU-WIDER has achieved significant milestones in research, partnership, and global engagement over the last five years. The institute produced more than 800 working papers, hosted numerous global forums, and synthesized insights from over 30 research projects into a key report that addresses the universal goals of peace, equality, and decent work.

Journal Article | Is the era of declining global income inequality over?

by Ravi Kanbur, Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez, and Andy Sumner

Journal | Structural Change and Economic Dynamics

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, populous nations—on the between-country component will, at some juncture, diminish and start to add to global inequality should economic growth persist.

Journal Article | Revisiting the trends in global inequality

by Carlos Gradín

Journal | World Development

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 distributional views (such as the use of absolute versus relative inequality, or relative emphasis at the bottom versus the top).

Journal Article | Is there a fiscal resource curse? Resource rents, fiscal capacity and political institutions in developing economies

by Tania Masi, Antonio Savoia, and Kunal Sen

Journal | World Development

OPEN ACCESS | 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 resources. Standard arguments suggest that natural resource rents may harm fiscal capacity, as governments tend to substitute tax revenues with revenues from natural resources.

Journal Article | Local crime and early marriage – evidence from India

by Sudipa Sarkar

Journal | Journal of Development Studies

ARTICLE ON EARLY VIEW | 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, we find that perceived crime against women in the locality significantly increases the likelihood of early marriage of girls, while there is no such effect on boys of comparable age group.

OPPORTUNITIES

Request for research proposals | Inequality over the life course

UNU-WIDER requests research proposals for its Inequality over the life course project. We invite original research which speaks to this project's core themes of intergenerational mobility and labour market inequality and which offer strong empirical or theoretical contributions. Submission deadline: 30 June 2024.

Call for papers | 2024 Jobs and Development Conference

The Jobs and Development Conference, scheduled for 8–9 October 2024, in Cairo and hosted by J-PAL MENA, invites submissions of policy-relevant papers on labour and development economics. The conference emphasizes various topics, including trade, labour market regulation, and green jobs, and welcomes contributions that advance global knowledge on effective job-related policies.

From the network

Call for Papers | 20th Annual Households in Conflict Network (HiCN) workshop

Since 2005, the Households in Conflict Network (HiCN) has fostered academic research and discussion on the micro-level experiences and consequences of violent conflict in its annual workshops. Hosted by Humboldt-University of Berlin on 1-2 October 2024, the 20th Anniversary HiCN Annual Workshop will build on this achievement by discussing a new focus for research within the micro-level, quantitative analysis of the impacts of violent conflict by promoting the analysis of so-called 'poly-crises'. Submission deadline: 10 May 2024.

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