

Miguel Niño-Zarazúa
Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow
Miguel Niño-Zarazúa is a development economist and Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER. Miguel’s research interests are in the areas of poverty, inequality, tax policy, welfare–benefit systems and the social effects that these policies generate. He is also interested in political economy considerations of state capacity and the functioning and efficacy of governments.
Miguel has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles in leading economics and development studies journals, and edited special issues in Population and Development Review, Journal of Globalization and Development, International Journal of Educational Development, and Journal of International Development. His most recent co-edited book The Politics of Social Protection in Eastern and Southern Africa is published by Oxford University Press, 2019. Miguel is Associate Editor and Member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of International Development.
As a Non-Resident Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER, Dr Niño-Zarazúa is currently involved in Clientelist Politics and Economic Development project, where he co-ordinates the research while also producing individual studies.
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Working Paper
An open database on inequality and polarization in length of life (1950–2021)Monitoring health is key for identifying priorities in public health planning and improving healthcare services. Life expectancy has conventionally been regarded as a valuable indicator to compare the health status of different populations. However...
Working Paper
Aid’s impact on social protection in low- and middle-income countriesThis study conducts an international comparative analysis of the recent evolution of social protection systems in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and Asia-Pacific (APAC) regions, paying particular attention to the...
Journal Special Issue
Clientelist Politics and DevelopmentFORTHCOMING SPECIAL ISSUE/COLLECTION IN WORLD DEVELOPMENT (journal), INDIVIDUAL ARTICLES ON OPEN ACCESS | Political clientelism — which reflects strategic, discretionary, and targeted exchange of private goods and services for political support to...
Journal Article
Informality and pension reforms in BoliviaPart of Journal Special Issue What sustains informality
Working Paper
Aid's impact on democracyThis paper investigates the impact of foreign aid on democratic outcomes using a panel of countries for the period between 1995 and 2018. In so doing, it speaks to a major critique of foreign aid, which is that it negatively impacts democratic...
Journal Article
The intergenerational impact of house prices on educationWe investigate heterogeneous and nonlinear intergenerational transmission of education and the impact on this of house prices. Using the China Household Finance Survey, we construct household history of property pur-chases and educational investment...
Working Paper
Voter coercion and pro-poor redistribution in rural MexicoVoter coercion is a recurrent threat to pro-poor redistribution in young democracies. In this study we focus on Mexico’s paradigmatic Progresa-Oportunidades-Prospera (POP) programme. We investigate whether local mayors exploited POP to coerce voters...
Working Paper
Informality and pension reforms in BoliviaHow social protection programmes affect work choices is a question that has been at the centre of labour economics research for decades. More recently, a scant literature has focused on the effects of social protection on work choices and informal...
Blog
Foreign aid can help stem the decline of democracy, if used in the right wayDemocracy is having a hard time. In India, once the world’s largest democracy, the pandemic has hastened the country’s slide toward authoritarianism...