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Tony Addison is a Professor of Economics, University of Copenhagen in the Development Economics Research Group. He was a Chief Economist and Deputy Director of UNU-WIDER in Helsinki, Finland. He was previously Professor of Development Studies, University of Manchester; Executive Director of the Brooks World Poverty Institute (BWPI), University of Manchester (from 2006-2009); Associate Director of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC); and Deputy Director of UNU-WIDER.
His books include: From Conflict to Recovery in Africa (Oxford University Press), Making Peace Work: The Challenges of Economic and Social Reconstruction (Palgrave Macmillan), and Poverty Dynamics: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective (Oxford University Press). He was a lead author for The Chronic Poverty Report 2008-09: Escaping Poverty Traps.
Companies in the oil, gas, and mining sectors face ever intensifying scrutiny over their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices and impacts: from civil society but also from investment funds and other stakeholders with ESG mandates...
While market mechanisms and private initiatives can deliver much for development, public action is also necessary to: maximize the economic benefits of the extractive industries; manage potentially large capital and revenues flows; minimize adverse...
This paper analyses the roles that states, civil society, and international actors can play in tackling the weak governance that sometimes leads to resources being used for private rather than public benefit. It discusses the corruption that bedevils...
This paper argues for a change in government attitudes to their extractive industries: as enclaves useful primarily as revenue sources. This is too narrow a perspective: it fails to recognize the broader economic linkages that are invariably possible...
This paper analyses the risks facing resource-dependent countries. These include: (i) economic mismanagement (the ‘resource curse’); (ii) political mismanagement; (iii) environmental damage (climate change and the destruction of natural capital). It...
The extractives industries are highly controversial but remain vitally important in much of the developing world. This paper considers their role in reducing energy poverty and discusses scenarios for the future of the global markets for oil, gas...
In this study, we develop an empirical framework that allows us to trace out a time path of metal prices. This framework shows that unpredictable shifts in demand, extraction costs and discovery of reserves, make estimation of the slope of this...
Do sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) contribute to Africa’s development? This paper assesses the objectives of SWFs (fiscal stabilization, productive investment, intergenerational saving) and discusses alternatives. We argue that fiscal stabilization...
We examine the effect of pandemics on selected commodity prices—in particular, those of zinc, copper, lead, and oil. We set up a vector autoregressive model and analyse data since the mid-nineteenth century to determine how prices reacted to...
Modelling the underlying long-run trend of metal prices is important, given that selected metals are a source of income for many countries. However, estimating the underlying trend has proven to be difficult, given the persistence and volatility of...
The COVID-19 pandemic represents an unprecedented global crisis. The task for economic policy is to help keep people alive, enterprises afloat, and households out of poverty. The pandemic has macroeconomic dimensions. First, it affects macroeconomic...
When it comes to reporting on Africa, the international news media has, over time, delivered very mixed messages. Yet there are still many who characterize sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) as a region of hunger, economic crisis, and political unrest. Over...
When measured in relative terms, global inequality has been decreasing. However, in absolute terms it has been increasing. What does this mean for analysing and addressing inequality? While it remains vital to continue reducing the global incidence...
Countries face both challenges and opportunities in using their extractive industries to achieve more inclusive development—particularly in the developing world. Yet while a large national income can result from resource wealth, it can also be...
The extractives industries must adjust their operations to shifting patterns of demand for oil, natural gas, and coal together with metals and minerals – as policies and new technologies encourage progress along low-carbon pathways in energy...
Part of Journal Special Issue Fiscal Policy, State Building and Economic Development
This journal presents a synopsis of the contextual conditions, factors and challenges under which the recent evolution of tax systems has taken place, as an introduction to this United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics...
This paper presents a synopsis of the contextual conditions, factors and challenges under which the recent evolution of tax systems has taken place over the past three decades. The paper gives especial emphasis to the role of natural endowments...
Many low- and middle-income countries are achieving good rates of economic growth, while high inequality remains a priority concern. Some countries meanwhile have low growth, high inequality, and pervasive poverty—often linked to their fragility...
This paper puts sub-Saharan Africa’s economic development into perspective. While much did not go as hoped for at independence, much of the region has been on a more promising development trajectory since the mid-1990s, as we illustrate using growth...
Part of Journal Special Issue Macroeconomic Perspectives on Aid
Part of Journal Special Issue Macroeconomic Perspectives on Aid
Much criticism of aid rests on no evidence at all, on out-of-date studies (many of which are methodologically weak) or on a misunderstanding of causation and country context. Many critics correlate weak or negative growth with aid flows, without much...
Part of Journal Special Issue Measuring quality of care
This paper investigates the relationship between mining and spatial inequality in Africa during 2001–12. The identification strategy is based on a unilateral causation between mining and district inequality. The findings show that when minerals are...
This paper investigates China’s influence on local economic development in 37 African countries between 1997 and 2007. We compare the average changes in economic growth, migration, spatial inequality, and welfare of mineral-rich districts, both prior...
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid for Gender Equality and Development
This special issue of the Journal of International Development comprises a set of papers on the theme of aid and gender equality. While the topic of aid effectiveness has been examined in this journal and elsewhere, the focus on how well development...
Commodity price shocks are an important type of external shock and are often cited as a problem for economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. We choose nine Sub-Saharan African countries that are heavily dependent on a single agricultural commodity for...
Japan has provided foreign aid for some 60 years. Japan’s aid has grown and evolved as it became richer and as the developing world changed too. Japan is a strong supporter of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and revised its ODA Charter in...
Africa has come a long way since the economic turmoil of the 1980s, the decade of ‘structural adjustment’. Growth has been strong, yet poverty remains high. Underlying the shortage of good livelihoods and high social inequality is the lack of...
Part of Journal Special Issue Aid, Social Policy and Development
The UNU-WIDER Special Issue aims to address collectively the following questions: (1) What are the principles and facts that have underpinned the evolution of bilateral and multilateral social sector aid over the past 25 years? In particular, how pro...
Conflict depletes all forms of human and social capital, as well as supporting institutions. The scale of the human damage can overwhelm public action, as there are many competing priorities and resources are often insufficient. What then should be...
This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture. From the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development...
Japan has an impressive history when it comes to aid, industrial policy, and infrastructure development, both as a country that saw meteoric development of its own, and as a country that has been one of the world’s largest donors for decades. Looking...