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The impact of tax havens on South African revenue October 2019The study uses a comparative analysis of foreign-owned firms operating in South Africa to show that firms with a parent registered in a tax haven tend to report 80% less in profits than similar firms without a parent in a tax haven...
Tax International taxation Profit shiftingPolicy Brief
Social protection, government revenue and microsimulation in developing countries October 2019Social protection has attracted increasing interest in developing countries in recent decades and policies have been initiated in all developing regions...
SOUTHMOD Microsimulation modelling Tax-benefit microsimulationPolicy Brief
Aid effectiveness: Growth and beyond October 2019The questions of whether aid has impact and is effective have been the subject of considerable attention...
Aid effectiveness aid and growth Development aidPolicy Brief
Horizontal inequality: Global trends and data challenges October 2019Inequality—both vertical (between individuals and households) and horizontal (between groups)—is a core concern in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development...
Group-based inequality Horizontal inequality Ethnic groupPolicy Brief
Can legal empowerment help to address ethnic exclusion? October 2019‘Legal empowerment’ is defined as a process of systemic change through which the poor and excluded become able to use the law to protect and advance their rights and interests as citizens and economic actors...
Legal empowerment Group-based inequality Property rightsResearch Brief
Firms with high-growth episodes in South Africa: Are they persistently high-growth firms? October 2019The analysis of firm growth has been a topic of consistent economic interest as a growing body of literature has lent support to the possibility that the majority of growth and new employment creation is the result of a small sub-sector of high-growt...
Firm growth High-growth firms Regression analysisBlog
Highlights from the 2019 WIDER Development Conference
The World Bank recently estimated that two-thirds of all jobs in developing countries are at risk of automation...
Jobs sdg8 Economic transformationResearch Brief
Dancing with dragons: Can South African firms compete with Chinese imports?China’s growing edge in export manufacturing has caused concern for low-income and middle-income countries seeking to develop robust manufacturing sectors...
Capabilities Import competition ImportBlog
How (not) to build state capabilityEffective and capable states are essential for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)...
SDGs SDG16 Building State CapabilitiesBlog
Industrial policy in the 21st century: The challenge for Africa
Why is there so little industry in Africa? Does it matter? What can be done about it?...
Research Brief
Racial inequality and demographic change in South Africa: Impacts on economic development September 2019Over the past 20 years, researchers have been looking at the economic lifecycle of individuals around the world using National Transfer Accounts (NTA) data...
demographic dividend economic lifecycle Intergenerational MobilityPolicy Brief
Resurgent Asia: Diversity in Development September 2019In 1820, Asia accounted for two-thirds of world population and over half of world income. The subsequent decline of Asia was attributable to its integration with a world economy shaped by colonialism and driven by imperialism...
Gunnar Myrdal Economic transformation Structural transformationPolicy Brief
Learning from a half-century of economic development in Asia August 2019When Gunnar Myrdal published his magnum opus, Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations , in 1968, he was deeply pessimistic about the development prospects in Asia...
Development Economics Asia Industrial policyResearch Brief
A game of snakes and ladders with loaded dice: Socioeconomic class and poverty in South Africa August 2019South Africa is often cited as the most unequal economy in the world...
Economic inequality Poverty Dynamics social stratificationResearch Brief
Balancing tax collection and equality: The case of value-added tax in South Africa August 2019In a democratic system, taxation is a critical part of the social contract between the state and its citizens. The tax system can be used to help address the unacceptably high levels of poverty, inequality, and unemployment in South Africa...
value-added tax microsimulation RedistributionResearch Brief
The gender wage gap in post-apartheid South Africa August 2019The World Bank reports that the world loses US$160 trillion in human capital wealth due to gender wage inequality every year. Inequality is not just an issue of fairness...
Labour force participation Gender gap wage gap