Working Paper
Is the education of local children influenced by living nearby a refugee camp?
This paper studies to what extent and in what ways access to educational services and schooling outcomes of local children are influenced by the presence of a refugee camp in or around their community. Taking the case of Congolese refugees in Rwanda...
Working Paper
Improving parenting practices for early child development
This paper investigates the short- and medium-term impact of a randomized group-based early child development programme targeting parents of children aged six to 24 months in a poor, rural district of Rwanda. The programme engaged parents through...
Working Paper
Evaluating the impact of the 2023–2024 personal income tax reform in Rwanda
Establishing an equitable and efficient tax system is essential for reducing poverty, combating inequality, and fostering sustainable economic growth. Rwanda’s government has recognized this and implemented significant changes to the personal income...
Working Paper
What drives parental investments in early childhood?
This paper investigates the causal impact of a randomized video intervention designed to study the determinants of parental time investments in early childhood among low-income parents. We designed and screened a video that provided information and...
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...
Working Paper
Political representation in the wake of ethnic violence and post-conflict institutional reform
The lack of political representation often lies at the origin of identity-based violence, and, when not resolved, can re-ignite violence. We study who perceives gains and losses in political representation in Rwanda and Burundi and why. We rely on a...
Report
SOUTHMOD country report Rwanda - RWAMOD v1.0
This report documents RWAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Rwanda. It describes the different tax-benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and the database on which the model runs. It concludes...
Journal Article
Improving parenting practices for early child development
This study investigates the short- and medium-term impact of a randomized group-based early child development program targeting parents of children aged 6–24 months in a poor, rural district of Rwanda. This low-intensity, short-duration, and low-cost...
Working Paper
Connecting national ownership and local participation in aid recipient countries
This paper examines previously under-explored links between two aid-nurtured ideals. ‘National ownership’ and ‘local participation’ both aim to increase recipient influence and thereby address the inherent inequality of the aid relation. Questioning...
Report
SOUTHMOD country report Rwanda - RWAMOD v1.1
This report documents RWAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Rwanda. This work was carried out by UNU-WIDER, SASPRI, and the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA). The results presented in this report are derived using RWAMOD version 1.1, which is part of...
Working Paper
Financial inclusion and nutrition among rural households in Rwanda
We investigate if financial inclusion leads to improved nutrition in rural Rwanda, using Rwandan Integrated Household Living Conditions surveys (2013/14 and 2016/17). Our empirical evidence shows a robust positive impact of financial inclusion...
Working Paper
Rationality, emotions, and ethnicity
The role of ethnicity in political behaviour remains unsettled theoretically. Instrumentalist theories emphasize cognitive processes, arguing that political actors strategically employ ethnicity to attain certain goals, while expressivist theories...
Working Paper
Smart classrooms and education outcomes
In this study, we explore the impact of a smart classroom (SCM) programme on student performance in science subjects in a high-stakes national exam for middle-high school students in Rwanda. To do this, we leverage plausibly exogenous variations in...