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35 years of research for change: Bringing inequality to the fore (1998-2020)
UNU-WIDER released the world’s first estimates of the global wealth distribution in 2007 – one result of a 2004–05 project, ‘Personal Assets from a...
76 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Blog
Studying COVID-19 through the lens of microsimulation: The role of tax and benefit policies in alleviating poverty and inequalityAs the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, developing nations are struggling to deliver economic assistance and public services to their...
Blog
Late development, early adoption – how new technology is reshaping the future of structural change
Technological catch-up is bringing new asynchronies to development pathways. What does this mean for employment, globalization, and inequality? A...
Blog
The developer’s dilemma in India – the role of politics and economic ideologyPolicy makers seeking inclusive growth frequently face the developer’s dilemma between prioritizing structural transformation, which is potentially...
Blog
UNU-WIDER at 35: Letter from the Director
2020 promised to be a big year for UNU-WIDER, with the celebration of our 35th anniversary, the 45th birthday of UNU, and 75 years of the UN. But as...
Blog
35 years of research for change – what's next?: Building just societiesTo celebrate its 35th birthday, UNU-WIDER has looked back at some of its greatest achievements. As the year closes, Armida Alisjahbana, Kunal Sen...
Working Paper
On the political and social consequences of economic inequalityThis paper investigates the impact of inequality on individual civic engagement at the community level, whether this impact persists over time, and what mechanisms may shape the relationship between inequality and civic engagement. The results show...
Research Brief
A game of snakes and ladders with loaded diceSouth Africa is often cited as the most unequal economy in the world. Its experience of having to overcome both colonialism and apartheid makes it unique from the vantage of studies on socioeconomic class, economic mobility, and poverty — with...
Journal Article
Introduction to Special Issue on: ‘Inequalities in the Least Developed Countries – Some Lessons from Africa’Part of Journal Special Issue Inequalities in the least developed countries
Working Paper
Promoting education under distortionary taxationHow does the public provision of education and the deployment of distortionary tax and subsidy instruments differ when the government’s objective is conventional welfarist compared to when the objective is the non-welfarist one of equality of...
Working Paper
Financing the Zambia social cash transfer scale-upThis paper assesses the effects on poverty and inequality of the alternative targeting approaches that Zambia’s Social Cash Transfer programme could take as its expansion continues during the period of the country’s Seventh National Development Plan...
Working Paper
Snakes and ladders and loaded diceLongitudinal surveys can give insight into economic mobility, which allows us to understand how markers of (dis)advantage are consequential in determining material conditions in the present, and how these markers structure economic opportunity over...
Working Paper
A new inequality estimate for urban India?This paper applies a novel inequality estimation method to household consumption expenditure in Mumbai, India. Since the richest households may be missing in survey data, this re-estimated inequality figure takes them into account by combining survey...
Blog
Why are workers getting a smaller share of the cake in Mexico?As with many other developed and emerging economies, in recent decades Mexico has experienced a long-term decline in the labour income share. In other...
Blog
Research that matters: A report from the stakeholder workshop - 15 November 2018, Pretoria, South Africa
I found myself in the third-floor conference rooms of a Pretoria hotel for a meeting with economists, researchers, and policymakers involved in the SA...
Working Paper
The effect of top incomes on inequality in South AfricaSouth Africa exhibits extreme levels of income inequality and is ranked as one of the most unequal countries in the world. In order to measure these severe levels of inequality, it matters how we account for the different parts of the income...
Working Paper
A macroeconomic perspective on Asian developmentMacroeconomic strategies and policies have differed significantly among Asian countries over the last fifty years, and yet some common issues recur despite their immense diversity in inherited historical initial conditions, differences in political...
Blog
Measuring inequality in middle-income countriesIncome inequality is the result of complex processes with multiple interacting driving forces but understanding those drivers in emerging economies is...
Working Paper
The effect of real exchange rate volatility on income distribution in South AfricaThis study investigates the effect of real exchange rate volatility on the distribution of income between labour and capital in South Africa. Both symmetric and asymmetric effects are considered. Using quarterly data for 1985:1–2018:3 and local...
Working Paper
Inequality in IndiaThis paper contributes to the literature by reviewing levels, trends, and structure of inequality since the early 1990s in India. It draws extensively on the existing literature, supplemented with analyses of multiple data sources, to paint a picture...
Working Paper
Measuring multidimensional inequality of opportunityThis paper develops a normative approach to the measurement of ex-ante inequality of opportunity in a multidimensional setting—that is, when the individual outcome is represented by a multidimensional variable. We characterize three classes of social...
Blog
Why is inequality in South Africa higher than in Germany?: Explaining income distributions with ‘decompositions’
The understanding of inequality requires the analysis of changes in income distributions across countries and over time as well as the identification...
Displaying 32 of 76 results