Journal Special Issue
Impact of the Liberalization of the Exchange Rate and Financial Markets in Sub-Saharan Africa
This special issue of the Journal of International Development presents the results of a study initiated two years ago by UNU/WIDER on `The impact of the liberalization of the exchange rate and financial markets in sub-Saharan Africa'. The project...
Journal Special Issue
The CFA Franc Zone 10 Years After Devaluation
Members of the CFA-zone enjoy currency convertibility, fiscal and monetary policies which are more prudent than SSA as a whole, and a large amount of financial and technical assistance. These advantages do not appear, however, to have resulted in...
Research Brief
The political economy of food price policy in Egypt
The Egyptian food system has been affected by both global food markets and domestic factors. During the recent global food price crisis, an estimated 30–40 percent of the price fluctuations in the global food market were transmitted to Egypt’s food...
Working Paper
Gendered Perspectives on Economic Growth and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
Researchers have linked sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) poor growth performance in recent decades to several factors, including geography, institutions, and low returns to investment. This literature has not yet integrated the research that identifies...
Working Paper
Income Inequality in Latin America
The paper reviews the extent of the income inequality decline that took place in Latin America in 2002-10 and then focuses on the factors that may explain such decline. These include a lowered skill premium following an expansion of secondary...
Working Paper
The impact of aid on total government expenditures
Aid is said to be fungible at the aggregate level if it raises government expenditures by less than the total amount. This happens when the recipient government decreases domestic revenue, decreases net borrowing, or when aid bypasses the budget...
Policy Brief
Fiscal Policy for Poverty Reduction, Reconstruction, and Growth
Growth, poverty reduction, and social peace are all undermined when public expenditure management and taxation are weak and when the fiscal deficit and public debt are not managed successfully. And large-scale aid and debt relief cannot work without...
Working Paper
Financial Markets and Governments
A survey of the changing relationship between the market for political services and the market for financial services.
Working Paper
Toward closer cohesion of international tax statistics
The Government Revenue Dataset (GRD) was launched in September 2014 and, in the few years since, has gone on to be recognized as the go-to source for researchers and policy makers seeking cross-country data on government revenues and taxes. However...
Working Paper
The Fiscal Effects of Aid in Ghana
An important feature of aid to developing countries is that it is given to the government. As a result, aid should be expected to affect fiscal behaviour, although theory and existing evidence is ambiguous regarding the nature of these effects. This...
Working Paper
The Burden of Government Debt in the Indian States
In this paper we explore what impact, if any, government debts have on achieving the Millennium Development Goals for the Indian states. To fulfill the goals, national governments, especially in the developing world, have to undertake major...
Working Paper
Extractives for development
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...
Working Paper
Revisiting the impact of direct taxes and transfers on poverty and inequality in South Africa
This paper uses a recent household survey and the CEQ framework to revisit and extend previous research on the impact of fiscal policy on income redistribution, and poverty in South Africa. We find, in accordance with previous research, that direct...
Journal Article
In the shadow of the city
Sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest urbanising region of the world. This demographic transformation has occurred in concert with two other trends in the region, nascent democratisation and stalled decentralisation. Using the case of Lusaka, Zambia...
Working Paper
Fiscal pressure of migration and horizontal fiscal inequality
This paper examines the patterns and trends in inter-state migration across Indian states and observes that migration is affected by demographic profile as well as the fiscal profile of states. Econometric estimation suggests that level of vertical...
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...
Working Paper
The Impact of EMU on European Transition Economies
An interesting theory of transition must give a convincing account of structural adjustment and supply side improvement. In this paper, I discuss the incentives for government to undertake costly supply side improvement and how these relate to...
Book Chapter
Gender, Economic Growth, and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 2.
Working Paper
Dealing with Capital Inflows
We have now witnessed more than half a decade of relatively heavy capital inflows to a large group of highly heterogeneous developing countries and economies in transition in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Former Soviet Union, Latin America, and parts of...
Working Paper
The Banking System and Monetary Aggregates Following Financial Sector Reforms
This paper discusses the process, problems and impacts of the financial sector reform in Indonesia, particularly since the late 1980s. The reform has encouraged a surge in private sector capital inflows to supplement the already high domestic savings...
Report
SOUTHMOD country report Mozambique - MOZMOD v2.10
This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. 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...
Working Paper
Public savings in Africa
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...
Report
SOUTHMOD country report Mozambique - MOZMOD v2.9
View the latest MOZMOD country report here. This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. It describes the different tax-benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and...
Working Paper
Fiscal policy in times of fiscal stress
South Africa runs a primary fiscal deficit and the long-term interest rate on government borrowing, r, is greater than the long-term economic growth rate, g. Without intervention, debt will continue to rise until there is a disorderly fiscal stop...
Working Paper
Microsimulation approaches to studying shocks and social protection in selected developing economies
This paper calculates automatic stabilization in Ghana, South Africa, and Ecuador to explain income cushioning amid income and demand shocks. Fiscal policies within these countries are also stress tested to gauge welfare contingencies and insurance...
Working Paper
Debt-financed fiscal stimulus in South Africa
Debt-financed fiscal stimulus programmes directly stimulate aggregate demand through government expenditure or tax cuts, but their effectiveness is highly dependent on direct crowding out of private sector expenditure, spillover effects to the...
Working Paper
The macroeconomic effect of fiscal policy in South Africa
This paper analyses the macroeconomic effect of legislated personal income tax changes in South Africa over the 1996–2019 period. We identify personal income tax shocks using a narrative approach and incorporate these shocks in a proxySVAR model. Our...
Working Paper
The dynamics of domestic revenue mobilization across four decades
We utilize the recently updated UNU-WIDER Government Revenue Dataset, which covers key indicators on tax and non-tax revenues for 196 countries since the 1980s, to study the dynamics of government revenue tax collection across selected periods from...
Working Paper
Enhancing Effective Utilization of Aid in Fragile States
This paper explores the macroeconomic implications of aid flows in countries with weak institutions. It argues that these countries should take into account their overall macroeconomic position, their capacity to absorb aid at the sectoral and...
Report
SOUTHMOD country report Mozambique - MOZMOD v2.6a
View the latest MOZMOD country report here. This report documents MOZMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Mozambique. It describes the different tax-benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and...
Working Paper
Success When Stars Align
Since the end of the civil war, the Government of Sierra Leone has made substantial progress in strengthening public financial management. Improvements have been achieved across all aspects of the budget cycle and are particularly notable with regard...
Working Paper
Foreign Aid, Public Sector and Private Consumption
This paper employs a cointegrated vector autoregressive model to assess the growth effect of aid in Uganda over the period 1972-2008. Results show that aid in Uganda has had both direct and indirect beneficial association with growth; that it is the...
Research Brief
Financing Growth in Low-income Countries
It is a widely accept projection that many low income countries (LICs) will remain low income for some time to come. Consequently, when assessing the policy options available to LICs it is important to take a long-term view. In the WIDER Working...
Working Paper
The copper sector, fiscal rules, and stabilization funds in Chile
Historically, Chile has been an economy dominated by mineral and agro-industrial products and subject to frequent external shocks particularly in copper prices. Since the 1980s, the authorities have developed various mechanisms to cope with these...
Working Paper
The Political Economy Dimensions of Macroeconomic Management of Aid in Ghana
This paper contributes to the debate on aid effectiveness by looking at the ‘how’ of aid effectiveness. In other words it provides an assessment of whether aid only filled a financing gap or whether it, in addition, helped influence the political...
Working Paper
A Timeseries Analysis of the Impact of Foreign Aid on Central Government’s Fiscal Budget in Uganda
A dynamic relationship between foreign aid and domestic fiscal variables in Uganda is analysed using a cointegrated vector autoregressive model over the period 1972-2008. Results show that aid is a significant element of long-run fiscal equilibrium...
Working Paper
On the Impact of External Debt and Aid on Public Expenditure Allocation in Sub-Saharan Africa after the Launch of the HIPC Initiative
In the wake of the current financial and economic crises, the economies of sub-Saharan Africa find themselves squeezed between likely reductions in official development assistance and the pressing challenge to eradicate poverty. Public expenditure...
Working Paper
Vertical Decentralization and Urban Service Delivery in South Africa
This study examines the role of politics on decentralization and service delivery in South Africa, with a specific focus on Johannesburg and Cape Town. The research delineates how national decentralization has affected service delivery...