Blog
GHAMOD launch and training: A tax-benefit microsimulation model for Ghana
Better social protection coverage and greater benefits in developing countries would certainly be welcomed by many. More and better forms of social...
Working Paper
A role for universal pension?
We use four novel, cross-country comparable tax-benefit microsimulation models for Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa to evaluate ex ante the expansion of a universal old-age pension in a static setting. Universal pensions would significantly...
Working Paper
The distributional impact of tax and benefit systems in six African countries
This paper assesses the effects of public policies on income taxes and benefits in six African countries. The comparative analysis focuses on the distribution and composition of incomes and assesses the effect of these policies on inequality and...
Working Paper
Tax-benefit microsimulation model in developing countries
This study aims to expand the use of tax-benefit microsimulation tools in Indonesia. In particular, it reviews the feasibility of expanding SOUTHMOD, a tax-benefit microsimulation model being applied in developing countries that was developed based...
Working Paper
Assessing the quality of the income data used in SAMOD, a South African tax-benefit microsimulation model
In this paper we explore the income data in two surveys that underpin a South African tax-benefit microsimulation model. The simulated taxes and benefits using each dataset are compared with each other and with administrative data for a common time...
Technical Note
Dealing with the oversimulation of taxes and benefits in SOUTHMOD microsimulation models
SOUTHMOD tax-benefit microsimulation models may in some cases oversimulate taxes or benefits, generating greater expenditure, a greater number of beneficiaries, or greater amounts of taxes or taxpayers than reported in administrative data. Drawing on...
Blog
SOUTHMOD family extended: 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...
Working Paper
Tax-benefit microsimulation model in Rwanda
This paper assesses the feasibility of developing a tax and benefit microsimulation model in Rwanda. Tax-benefit microsimulation can be used to explore ways in which national development goals can be achieved in a cost-effective manner, and to assess...
Working Paper
Tax–benefit responses in Uruguay during the COVID-19 pandemic
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...
Blog
Teamwork and capacity strengthening to promote development: The case of Mozambique
Designing and implementing public policies requires caution to guarantee the best use of scarce resources, especially in middle- and lower-income...
Blog
Lives can be improved when policymakers and researchers collaborate
by
Isabelle Beyera
September 2022
My motivation for doing economics research comes from the wish to see every human being have their basic needs met and enjoy their life. My interest...
Blog
Behind the scenes: Meet our tax-benefit microsimulation team in Viet Nam!
by
Anna Toppari
May 2022
How can Vietnamese policymakers improve their policy choices related to social protection and tax policies? Who are the experts providing evidence on...
Blog
New country on the SOUTHMOD map: Meet our tax-benefit microsimulation team in Rwanda!
by
Anna Toppari
December 2022
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...
Journal Article
The impact of indirect tax on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania
This study analyses the impacts of indirect tax benefits policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8. The simulations model two indirect tax reforms involving changes...
Working Paper
Analysis of the distributional effects of COVID-19 and state-led remedial measures in South Africa
This paper explores the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa on income poverty and inequality in South Africa. Using a static tax–benefit microsimulation model with input datasets that were adjusted to reflect people’s...
Technical Note
How to implement sub-national poverty lines in a SOUTHMOD country model using conditional constants
This note describes how to incorporate sub-national poverty lines into a SOUTHMOD country model using conditional constants within the constants function in such a way that the Statistics Presenter can generate national-level poverty statistics. The...
Blog
From sub-Saharan Africa to Viet Nam and Ecuador, how one model is used to improve social protection
Are there enough tax payers to generate the revenue needed by governments to reduce poverty? How adequate are the social security arrangements that...
Blog
An African in Africa: New perspectives on travelling for research
Working for an international organisation presents a host of challenges, given the vast nature of tasks that one must surmount in a fast paced and...
Blog
The pandemic and Africa's social safety net
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that African tax and social-benefit systems are currently ill-equipped to protect households from sudden income losses...
Journal Article
Analysis of the distributional effects of COVID-19 and state-led remedial measures in South Africa
This study explores the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa on income poverty and inequality in South Africa. Using a static tax-benefit microsimulation model with input datasets that were adjusted to reflect people’s...
Technical Note
Exploring the quality of income data in two South African household surveys which underpin SAMOD
This note has set out several data processes that have been undertaken using the income data in dataset(s) that underpin SAMOD. Section 1 describes various data-cleaning steps that were undertaken when preparing the LCS 2014/15 as an underpinning...
Blog
Cash Plus: Towards poverty reduction in Zambia
by
Miselo Bwalya
February 2024
The Zambian government wants to reduce poverty by 20% by 2030. To make this happen, the government reformed their national cash transfer programmes...
Blog
Modelling to influence poverty and inequality in Zanzibar: Latest addition to the SOUTHMOD programme
by
Anna Toppari
December 2023
ZANMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for Zanzibar, was launched in November 2023. The model will aid local authorities and researchers in...
Working Paper
Tax–benefit microsimulation modelling in Zanzibar
This working paper explores the feasibility of developing a tax and benefit microsimulation model in Zanzibar using the EUROMOD microsimulation software. We review Zanzibar’s tax and benefit arrangements and the potential household survey dataset...
Working Paper
Financial disincentives to formal work
The aim of this paper is to quantify the financial cost that informal workers would incur in the event of entering formality, accounting for potential earnings gains upon entry. To do so, we use representative microdata from Ecuador and Colombia...
Working Paper
Microsimulation analysis of the impact of indirect tax benefits on income distribution and poverty alleviation in Tanzania
This paper analyses the impacts of indirect tax policy reforms on income distribution and poverty in Tanzania by applying a standard static microsimulation model TAZMOD v1.8. The simulations model two indirect tax reforms involving changes to the...
Workshop
Third training on GHAMOD – a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Ghana
The third training on the use of GHAMOD, a tax-benefit microsimulation programme for Ghana, introduced participants to the latest version of the programme. Altogether 15 professionals and researchers working on tax and social protection issues in...
Tue, 9 March 2021
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Thu, 11 March 2021
University of Ghana at Legon,
Accra,
Ghana
Past event
Presentation
SOUTHMOD presented at an SA-TIED Policy dialogue event
UNU-WIDER's SA-TIED programme organized an online policy dialogue event on 19 April. The topic of the event was 'Tax and benefit responses to COVID-19 in South Africa'. The event introduced research results of studies using the SOUTHMOD tax-benefit...
Mon, 19 April 2021
Online,
South Africa
Past event
Presentation
SOUTHMOD presented at the CeMPA General Meeting
CeMPA, Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis, organized its yearly general meeting for experts working in the area of tax-benefit microsimulation on 12 May 2021. The meeting was held virtually. SOUTHMOD microsimulation models and ongoing...
Wed, 12 May 2021
Online,
United Kingdom
Past event
Blog
Studying COVID-19 through the lens of microsimulation: The role of tax and benefit policies in alleviating poverty and inequality
As the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, developing nations are struggling to deliver economic assistance and public services to their...
Working Paper
Exploring the quality of income data in two African household surveys for the purpose of tax-benefit microsimulation modelling
The quality of data on employment income is explored using Tanzanian and Zambian household survey datasets. The extent of missing and implausible income data is assessed and four different methods are applied to impute missing or implausible values...
Project workshop
2021 SOUTHMOD workshop
On 24-25 May 2021, 35 participants from six different time zones and eleven different countries gathered for a two-day virtual SOUTHMOD workshop to exchange experiences and knowledge on tax-benefit microsimulation modeling in developing countries...
Mon, 24 May 2021
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Tue, 25 May 2021
Online,
Helsinki,
Finland
Past event
Workshop
MOZMOD retreat
In collaboration with the national MOZMOD team, International Labour Organization (ILO) Mozambique, Ministry of Economic and Finance of Mozambique (MEF) and the Southern Africa for Social Policy Research Insights (SASPRI), UNU-WIDER will organize a 6...
Sun, 6 June 2021
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Fri, 11 June 2021
Past event
Presentation
SOUTHMOD presented at the IAB seminar series
The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) is hosting an online seminar series "Corona - leveler or amplifier of social and economic inequality?". The weekly seminar series aims to bring together empirically rigorous contributions from the fields of...
Wed, 19 May 2021
Online,
Nuremberg,
Germany
Past event
Presentation
SOUTHMOD presented at a UNU-WIDER conference
UNU-WIDER organized a two-day online conference on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in Africa on 11-12 February 2021. The preliminary results of an ongoing SOUTHMOD study were presented on the second day of the conference. The conference Development...
Fri, 12 February 2021
Past event
Workshop
Fourth training on MOZMOD – a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Mozambique
This online workshop was the fourth training event on the MOZMOD model, organized by UNU-WIDER, the Southern African Social Policy Research Institute (SASPRI), Ministry of Economics and Finance, Mozambique, and ILO Mozambique. The participants were...
Mon, 3 August 2020
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Tue, 4 August 2020
Ministry of Economic and Finance,
Julius Nyerere Avenue,
Maputo,
Mozambique
Past event
Workshop
First PERUMOD training and launch event
As part of the SOUTHMOD project, the national team at Universidad del Pacífico in collaboration with UNU-WIDER and International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science organizes the first training and launch...
Mon, 20 November 2023
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Thu, 23 November 2023
Universidad del Pacífico,
Peru
Past event
Workshop
Sixth training on TAZMOD - a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Tanzania
As part of the SOUTHMOD project, the national team at University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with UNU-WIDER, and Southern African Social Policy Research Insights (SASPRI) organizes a training event on TAZMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation...
Wed, 25 October 2023
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Fri, 27 October 2023
Golden Tulip Airport,
Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania
Past event
Policy seminar
Distributional Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Zambia
Thu, 14 October 2021
Sarovar Premiere Hotel, online,
Lusaka,
Zambia
Past event
Presentation
SOUTHMOD work presented at the Mozambique Social Protection Week
The Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Action (MGCAS) organises a Social Protection theme week in Mozambique 11-15 October 2021. During the week, on 15 October, The Mozambican Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) with Internation Labour...
Fri, 15 October 2021
Radisson Blu,
Mozambique
Past event
Project workshop
SOUTHMOD modelling mini-retreat
On 14 and 18 October 2021, 15 researchers from different countries gathered together for a SOUTHMOD mini-retreat. The participants discussed different aspects of the SOUTHMOD tax-benefit microsimulation software and examined possible changes to the...
Thu, 14 October 2021
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Mon, 18 October 2021
Online,
Finland
Past event
Workshop
Second VNMOD retreat
The fifth training event on VNMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for Viet Nam, is organized as a five-day research retreat, intended to empower participants to use VNMOD to answer their own policy questions. The retreat is composed of two...
Mon, 17 April 2023
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Fri, 21 April 2023
CIEM,
68 Phan Dinh Phung Street,
Hanoi,
Vietnam
Past event
Presentation
SOUTHMOD presentation at the LOTTE-Skatt conference
The tax-benefit model LOTTE-Skatt is a key tool of Norwegian tax policy decision-making. To mark its 50th anniversary Statistics Norway and the Norwegian Ministry of Finance organise a conference in Oslo 15–16 June 2023. UNU-WIDER Research Associate...
Thu, 15 June 2023
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Fri, 16 June 2023
Radisson Red Oslo Økern,
Oslo,
Norway
Past event
Workshop
Second UGAMOD retreat
The fourth training event on UGAMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for Uganda, is organized as a five-day research retreat, intended to empower participants to use UGAMOD to answer their own policy questions. The retreat is composed of two...
Mon, 10 July 2023
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Fri, 14 July 2023
Uganda Revenue Authority,
Kampala,
Uganda
Past event
Presentation
SOUTHMOD presented at the European Conference for African Studies 2023
University of Cologne hosts the European Conference for African Studies on 31 May - 3 June 2023. The topic of this year's conference is 'African Futures'. Raphael Macha, a collaborator of UNU-WIDER's SOUTHMOD project in Tanzania presents a paper on...
Sat, 3 June 2023
Neues Seminargebäude, Seminarraum 26,
Cologne,
Germany
Past event