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From the Editor's Desk (March 2012)Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a...
Tony Addison With the ice floes now gone from the harbour outside the UNU-WIDER building, and with the snow replaced by an icy hail, there is a...
Danielle Resnick During the last month, three democracies in Africa witnessed incumbent presidents exit office in very different ways. The most...
To halt the deterioration of their national economy most African governments embarked on IMF and World Bank supported Structural Adjustment Programmes. These programmes have been criticised as neglecting social costs and promoting export-led growth...
The proposals in this paper derive from studies undertaken at WIDER on questions relating to sustainable development in developing countries. The paper attempts to quantify the resource transfer implications of supporting feasible environment...
The recent rise in inequality in the distribution of disposable income in many, although not all, countries has led to a search for explanations, particularly since for much of the postwar period falling inequality has been the norm. In OECD...
Part of Journal Special Issue Clientelist Politics and Development
Past research has provided evidence of clientelistic politics in delivery of programme benefits by local governments, or gram panchayats (GPs), and manipulation of GP programme budgets by legislators and elected officials at upper tiers in West...
At independence in 1975, the Frelimo government took over public administration from the colonial system and started to transform it. The public financial management (PFM) system was adapted to the central planning and management of the economy in...
Despite impressive economic growth rates over the last decade, foreign aid still plays a significant role in Africa's political economies.This book asks when, why, and how foreign aid has facilitated, or hindered, democratization in sub-Saharan...
Part of Book Democratic Trajectories in Africa
Budget reliability is the first pillar of Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA). In this study, we construct an expansion of the PEFA government response accuracy indicator and test its decomposition, with an application to the...
Are recent donor approaches compatible with a political understanding of policy processes in partner or recipient countries? This question is given increased urgency with the recent calls for and commitment to increasing financial flows, scaling-up...
The paper discusses implications for practice and theory of the recently completed Joint Evaluation of General Budget Support 2004-06 based on case studies in Burkina Faso, Malawi, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Uganda and Vietnam. The paper first...
This study examines the effect of the hardening of the budget constraint on the investment behaviour of Italian state owned enterprises (SOEs). It carries out a natural experiment that exploits the 1987 shift of budget regimes due to the pressure of...
Part of Book Inequality, Growth and Poverty in an Era of Liberalization and Globalization
Part of Journal Special Issue Focus
Part of Book Foreign Aid for Development
This paper contributes to the literature on the role of decentralization in hardening the budget constraint of public enterprises. Following Qian and Roland the study adopts a ‘federalist’ approach. However, it interprets federalism as the upward...
In this paper we discuss monetary and fiscal policy issues facing heavily-indebted poor countries (HIPCs) who receive debt reduction via the enhanced HIPC initiative. This debt relief program is distinguished from previous ones by its conditionality...
Part of Journal Special Issue Foreign Aid Heterogeneity
Part of Journal Special Issue Foreign Aid Heterogeneity
All countries, especially developing countries with limited financial resources, face difficult decisions in prioritizing public funds for investment projects in order to achieve strategic public goals in the face of multiple demands. Effective...
In Mozambique donors have shifted focus from project aid to budget support in an effort to reform the public sector and ‘justice, legality and public order’. While budget support has increased state capacity and helped Mozambique’s donor community...
The strong interdependent relationship between the developed and developing countries made itself visible again with the recent economic downturn. Due to the now truly global character of the economy, the crisis did not only affect the North, where...
10 December 2013 Tony Addison Our November-December Angle comes amid intense activity on our ReCom—Research and Communication on Foreign Aid—programme...
31 October 2013 Tony Addison October finds Angle in New York, for our event on ‘Fragility and Aid–What Works?’ at the Permanent Mission of Germany to...
Since the era of one-party rule, Malawi’s relationship with the donor community has proved erratic and contentious. During the second term of Malawi’s current president, Bingu wa Mutharika, this trend has continued apace, with important implications...
This study explores the effects of foreign aid on democracy in Mozambique during the last decade. Aid for democracy built on historic relationships forged between donors and the government during the wartime humanitarian emergency. Foreign aid played...
The strong interdependence between the developed and developing worlds surfaced with the recent economic downturn. Due to the global character of the economy, the downturn affected not only the North but also the South. In addition, the Official...