WIDERAngle

Expert commentary from our network

Securing a future for the next generations – navigating today’s global challenges

by Frederik Matthys
In an era frequently described as ‘unprecedented’, the global landscape often seems daunting. Countries classified as democracies are increasingly outnumbered by those classified as autocracies, interstate conflicts have escalated, and the multifaceted impacts of climate change—from health crises to forced displacement—continue to intensify. Meanwhile, gender inequality persists, progress in poverty and inequality reduction has stalled, or even reversed in some contexts, and multilateral co...

Quantifying the economic impact of conflict traps

by Joan Margalef
As we look towards securing a brighter future for coming generations, we must address the complex challenges that threaten sustainable development and global stability. Among these challenges, conflict stands out as a particularly destructive one. In our latest research, we find that a country that falls into conflict is expected to lose 20% of its GDP per capita after 30 years, compared to if it had always been at peace. Even for small countries, this represents a substantial economic loss...

What are foresight methods and how can they secure our common futures?

by Aicha Robei
Future tools and foresight thinking are crucial instruments to improve decision-making for a common future. As a Youth Foresight Fellow with UNICEF, I firmly believe that utilizing foresight, a sophisticated approach for anticipation and strategic planning, is essential in tackling and lessening the impacts of climate change, conflict, and inequality.Foresight allows us to think about the speculated future based on models and data to solve problems and chart a path to a prosperous and nurturing...

161 Blogpost

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Time to rethink theory on the role of finance in development: The new structural financial economics framework

The primary role of finance is to serve the ‘real economy’¬—the part of the economy that produces goods and services. Yet in practice, the financial...

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Affirmative action policies to increase diversity are successful, but controversial, around the world

In a landmark judgment in June 2023, the US Supreme Court ruled against the use of race-conscious admissions in colleges and universities. This...

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Improving early child development outcomes in low-income settings

Improving early child development outcomes in low-income settings requires affordable, sustainable, and easily scalable solutions. The “First Steps”...

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WIDER Alumni Amadou Boly shares wisdom for next generation
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Amadou Boly is Special Assistant in the Economic Governance and Knowledge Management Complex at the African Development Bank (ADB). Before that, he...

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My journey from research assistant to the World Bank and Yale: How SA-TIED transformed my career
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When I began my role as a research assistant for the SA-TIED programme in January 2020, I didn’t know that it would lead me to such prestigious...

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$1 trillion in the shade: The annual profits multinational corporations shift to tax havens continues to climb and climb

About a decade ago, the world’s biggest economies agreed to crack down on multinational corporations’ abusive use of tax havens. This resulted in a 15...

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From Monterrey to Addis Ababa, and what has happened since?
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The importance of domestic revenue mobilization and taxation for sustainable development is widely acknowledged in global development discussions, but...

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Not too long and not too short: Introducing the new UNU-WIDER and Cambridge University Press series in Development Economics

Simon Kuznets’ pipe dream was to have economic inequality data that rarely existed when he was writing. What are the pipe dreams of today’s...

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Global tax reforms, net-zero, and domestic revenue: Food for thought from the DRM programme
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Domestic revenue mobilization (DRM) and taxation have gained prominence lately on the global agenda, most recently with the resolution for the United...

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Empirical research is crucial for better tax enforcement in the developing world
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I had the privilege to participate in the UNU-WIDER Winter School as one of the lecturers. In this blog, I explain my main takeaways for students and...

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Fintech and domestic savings: A perfect match coming true in sub-Saharan Africa
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Financial technology (FinTech) is a major force disrupting the structure of financial services in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and enabling access of...

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The inheritance of human capital: Rethinking how much parents’ influence children’s human capital in low- and middle-income countries
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The measure of human capital —the economic value of one’s skills and experience— acknowledges that investments in people’s cognitive and emotional...

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The 1918-20 influenza pandemic: A retrospective in the time of COVID-19

The influenza pandemic of 1918 (the Spanish Flu) is by far the greatest humanitarian disaster caused by an infectious disease in modern history. It...

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Digital platforms and job search: Experimental evidence from Mozambique

Digital technologies can be deployed to improve job search, but their effectiveness in practice is disrupted. This column uses experimental data to...

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Sales recovered faster from the pandemic than employment: Evidence from tax administrative and survey data in Zambia

Like most other countries, the government of Zambia introduced restrictions to control COVID-19, which considerably curtailed normal economic activity...

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Dual learning disadvantages in East Africa: And how to deal with them
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Children from poorer families in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda face a double disadvantage in their opportunity to access learning: not only is the...

Displaying 16 of 161 results