
74 UNU-WIDER articles, publications, projects, experts...
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Working Paper
The Economics Of Complex Humanitarian EmergenciesThis paper, a draft from the early stages of an ongoing UNU/WIDER research project, outlines hypotheses for the economic cause of humanitarian disasters. Complex humanitarian emergencies are considered to be man-made crises, in which large numbers of...
Working Paper
The African LionsThis paper mainly analyses the drivers of economic growth in Kenya and the linkages to the labour market dynamics, with a focus on population growth, its structure, and the prospects of reaping a demographic dividend. This is in recognition that...
Blog
Density and Disasters: Economics of Urban Hazard RiskSomik V. Lall and Uwe Deichmann Following the terrible disaster which struck Haiti last month, in which more than 200,000 people are estimated to have...
Working Paper
Delayed marriage, contraceptive use, and breastfeedingThe rate of fertility decline has been slow in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using the Demographic and Health Surveys for 21 SSA countries between 1990 and 2014, we examine the within-country fertility patterns by wealth, applying the Bongaarts (2015)...
Working Paper
Population Size, Per Capita Income, and the Risk of Civil WarA common finding in the empirical civil war literature is that population size and per capita income are highly significant predictors of civil war incidence and onset. This paper shows that the common finding of population size and per capita income...
Working Paper
Health Improvements and Health Inequality during the Last 40 YearsThis paper juxtaposes changes over the last forty years in income growth and distribution with the mortality changes recorded at the aggregate level in about 170 countries and at the individual level in 26 countries with at least two demographic and...
Working Paper
Globalization, Growth and Poverty in IndiaIn this paper an attempt is made to assess the impact of economic reforms on the incidence of poverty by decomposing the change in poverty ratio between two time points into growth/mean effect, inequality effect and the population shift effect. Based...
Journal Article
Ordinal Welfare Comparisons with Multiple Discrete IndicatorsWe develop an approach for making welfare comparisons between populations with multidimensional discrete well-being indicators observed at the micro level. The approach is rooted in the concept of multidimensional first order dominance. It assumes...
Working Paper
Social and Political Indicators of Human Well-beingA plethora of what are loosely described as social and political indicators of well-being exist. Both the range and country coverage of these indicators has increased appreciably in recent years. In this paper we ask what contribution these...
Working Paper
Population Ethics and the Value of LifePublic policies often involve choices of alternatives in which the size and the composition of the population may vary. Examples are the allocation of resources to prenatal care and the design of aid packages to developing countries. In order to...
Working Paper
Education Policy, Vocational Training, and the Youth in Sub-Saharan AfricaTechnical, vocational education, and training has remained an explosive topic because it can create a divided society in terms of education and the benefits associated with it. Internationally, it has always been a complex and controversial topic...
Working Paper
The Prospects for an Imminent Demographic Dividend in AfricaThis paper looks at the prospects of a demographic dividend in Africa in the near future. While acknowledging that the fertility declines which change population age structures and thus dependency ratios have been slow to begin and often seem to have...
Working Paper
Informality, Growth, and Development in AfricaThe informal sector makes up an overwhelming share of both gross domestic product and total employment in Africa. In this paper, we lay out some of the basic characteristics of the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa, relevant institutions, and...
Working Paper
Changes in Land Tenure and Agricultural Intensification in Sub-Saharan AfricaDue to increasing population pressure on limited cultivable land in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), farm size has been shrinking, fallow periods have been shortened, and soil fertility has been declining. In accordance with the Boserupian...
Working Paper
Health Status and Health Policy in Sub-Saharan AfricaThis paper discusses the main changes in infant, child and maternal mortality which have occurred over 1960-1995 in Sub-Saharan Africa and analyses the main factors responsible for the observed shifts in these health trends. To do so, the paper...