Research Brief
A colonial legacy?
The presence of European colonial powers in Africa has left a long-lasting legacy that has severely impacted their development trajectories. But what are the lingering effects of colonization on economic performance, in particular with regard to...
Journal Article
Introducing carbon taxes in South Africa
South Africa is considering introducing a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Following a discussion of the motivations for considering a carbon tax, we evaluate potential impacts using a dynamic economywide model linked to an energy...
Working Paper
Spatial and temporal multidimensional poverty in Nigeria
Nigeria has recorded impressive growth in the last decade, yet the impact of this growth on poverty reduction remains unclear. This paper appraises spatial and temporal non-monetary multidimensional poverty in Nigeria using the first-order dominance...
Working Paper
Mozambique
Since 1994, a great deal has been accomplished. We argue that poverty reduction was temporarily sidelined in the 2000s. A series of shocks, especially the fuel and food price crisis of 2008, combined with poor productivity growth in agriculture and a...
Working Paper
Inequality of Opportunity in Educational Achievements
This paper evaluates fairness in educational achievements through the ordered pair (WEEOp, IEOp) whose components provide: (i) A measure of social welfare which accounts for the achievement of less-advantaged pupils and (ii) a synthetic index of...
Policy Brief
The Global Impact of the Southern Engines of Growth
This Policy Brief focuses on links between the developing countries of Brazil, India, China and South Africa and the global economy, with a special emphasis on the implications of China’s spectacular growth on developing economies and the rest of the...
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...
Journal Article
First Order Dominance Analysis
This paper performs a multidimensional first order dominance analysis of child wellbeing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This methodology allows the ordinal ranking of the 11 provinces of the DRC in terms of their wellbeing based upon the...
Working Paper
Ethnic Heterogeneity and Public Goods Provision in Zambia
The hypothesis that ethnic diversity has a negative impact on public goods provision is widely accepted. Notably, most work on this issue fails to distinguish adequately between national versus subnational governance. We find that subnational...
Working Paper
Social Transfers and Growth
The effects of social transfers on growth are still unclear. The limitations of aggregated data at sub-national levels have confined the analysis to the use of simulation models and household surveys. As an alternative, this paper contributes to the...
Working Paper
First Order Dominance Analysis
This paper performs a multidimensional first order dominance (FOD) analysis of child wellbeing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This methodology allows the ordinal ranking of the 11 provinces of the DRC in terms of their wellbeing based...
Working Paper
Promoting Education within the Context of a Neo-Patrimonial State
In the first two or three decades of independence, Nigeria, like the rest of Africa. placed heavy emphasis on expanding educational opportunities from primary school through university. This has resulted in a very impressive increase in the number of...
Working Paper
Welfare Changes in China during the Economic Reforms
The study examines welfare changes in China during the reform period (1978- ) by analysing various welfare indicators, the causes of change, and the shifting models. It provides an empirical case to the general debate over the relationship between...
Working Paper
The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes on Household Work Decisions in Ghana
A cash transfer programme ‘Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty’ has been implemented with the aim of addressing poverty and vulnerability in Ghana. This study looks at the impact of this conditional cash transfer programme on households’ supply of...
Working Paper
Estimating multidimensional poverty in Zambia
In this paper, we apply the first-order dominance (FOD) approach to assessing multidimensional welfare to analyse multidimensional poverty in Zambia in 1996, 2006, and 2010. In addition to evaluating welfare across time and space, we extend the...
Working Paper
Estimating multidimensional childhood poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2007 through 2013
After years of economic decline, conflict, and instability, the Democratic Republic of Congo achieved rapid economic growth in the 2000s along with a reduction in rural consumption poverty. This paper evaluates the extent to which recent growth has...
Working Paper
Connections and the Allocation of Public Benefits
We explore the relationship between connections and public transfers in decentralized poverty-targeting programmes. Using panel data from Vietnam we find evidence that households with connections to local government are more likely to be classified...
Journal Article
Ordinal Welfare Comparisons with Multiple Discrete Indicators
We develop an approach for making welfare comparisons between populations with multidimensional discrete well-being indicators observed at the micro level. The approach is rooted in the concept of multidimensional first order dominance. It assumes...
Working Paper
A Review of Welfare Changes in Asian Transitional Economies
In examining the welfare situation, this paper explores the relationship between economic changes and social development in Asian transition economies. Under the central planning system, achievements in human development in these countries were...
Working Paper
Provision of Public and Merit Goods
This paper is part of a larger UNUIWIDER research project which examines the problems of the provision of basic social goods, such as health care, education, maternal care and safe water, in the developing countries. These services have...
Working Paper
Provision of Health Care and Education in Transitional Asia
This paper examines the impact of the transition to a market economy on health and education outcomes in transitional Asia, with particular focus on the case of Vietnam. After examining a variety of empirical evidence, several lessons emerge. First...
Working Paper
Long-Term Growth and Welfare in Transitional Economies
This paper analyses the long-term growth and welfare impact of the transition to the market economy in the countries of Eastern Europe. We define welfare as the average real net wage after payments of social security contributions to fund a paygo...
Working Paper
Regulation of Social Services in the Least Developed Countries
The privatization trend affecting the state involvement in productive sectors is also challenging the role of the state in the provision of social services. And, as private participation in social sectors increases, a regulatory framework is needed...
Working Paper
On the Regulation of Telecommunications Markets
This paper discusses the theoretical concepts underlying recent developments in the regulation of telecommunications in Europe, the USA and developing countries with respect to efficiency and welfare. It focuses on analysing standardization problems...
Working Paper
Asylum Policy in the West
This article examines the policy responses of Western countries in the realm of asylum. We begin by explaining the reasons why the asylum issue has made its way up the political agendas of liberal democratic countries in recent years. While...
Working Paper
The Role of Civic Organizations in the Provision of Social Services
In recent years churches, NGOs and community associations, commonly referred to as civic organizations, have been playing an increasing role in the provision of social services in response to fiscal stress, state inefficiency and an ideological...
Working Paper
Sustainability and Well-being Indicators
This paper provides a review and critical discussion of indicators, which attempt to combine the measurement of sustainability with that of well-being. It starts with some commonly agreed definitions of sustainability, showing how most well-being...
Working Paper
The Intertemporal Effects of International Transfers
The classical transfer problem is studied in an overlapping generations framework, where the transfer is from a creditor country to a debtor country. A distinction is made between tax-financed and debt-financed transfers on the one hand, and between...
Working Paper
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan is typically seen as one of the slowest reformers among the countries in transition from central planning to a market-oriented economy. This paper evaluates the welfare impact of gradual transition in Uzbekistan, asking whether it has...