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Publications (22)
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Theory and some evidence from India
Using the lens of a life-cycle model, we argue that an administrative failure of a wage payment delay in a workfare programme could adversely affect the welfare of the poor through two channels. First, it imposes an implicit consumption tax on the household. Second, it changes the status of labour...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Experimental evidence from an information dissemination intervention
This study assesses the impact of an information dissemination intervention on the local-level implementation of the rural public works program in India. One key feature of the intervention is to provide information to workers once their wages get credited into their accounts. Using administrative...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from a field experiment in India
Does information dissemination among beneficiaries of welfare programmes mitigate their implementation failures? We present experimental evidence in the context of a rural public works programme in India, where we assess the impact of an intervention that involves dissemination of publicly available...
Working Paper
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– An investigation of India’s employment guarantee programme
Administrative failures in anti-poverty programmes are widespread in developing countries.We focus on one such administrative failure—the persistent delay in paying beneficiaries on time in India’s iconic anti-poverty programme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Using a life cycle...
Working Paper
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– Perspectives from a New Qualifier, Tanzania
In 1970 the external debt of Tanzania, a least developed country, was 16.8 per cent of GDP and 58.6 per cent of exports. The ratio of per capita debt to per capita income was 14.4 per cent. By 2001 the debt had reached just over 100 per cent of GDP and over 11 times the value of exports, with a per...
Working Paper
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– The Kenya Case
The Kenyan economy had a growth of –0.3 per cent in the year 2001, the lowest growth in the post-independence era. The dismal growth performance coincided with the period when the government was involved in grassroot consultations with civil society and other stakeholders, to find out the causes of...
Working Paper
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The objective of this paper is to arrive at a better understanding of the implications of debt relief savings for poverty reduction in HIPC countries by focusing on one important channel of impact—human capital accumulation. Our simulation results suggest that poverty and growth objectives would be...
Working Paper
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This paper considers how the conditionality inherent in HIPC debt relief should be constituted to promote pro-poor policies. There are two dimensions to this. First, the extent to which the policies proposed are pro-poor. Second, the potential for releasing resources for pro-poor expenditures. The...
Working Paper
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– Initial Impacts and Potential for Institutionalization
An almost accidental by-product of the enhanced HIPC initiative, the process of producing poverty reduction strategy papers represents at least potentially a non-trivial change in the way international finance interacts with poverty reduction efforts at the national level. This paper reports the...
Working Paper
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– Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers Investigated
This paper investigates poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs), launched by the International Monetary Fund/World Bank in 1999 as conditions for debt relief and loans. It queries whether PRSPs really represent a shift away from the controversial structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) of the past...
Working Paper
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This paper presents a review of the current debt problem in Ghana and assesses whether debt relief under the HIPC initiative can be effectively translated into poverty reduction. The extent of the debt burden is jeopardizing Ghana’s effort at poverty reduction. The evidence suggests that debt relief...
Working Paper
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The HIPC initiative for debt relief in the poorest countries has been extended to cover more countries. Zambia is one the countries accepted under the enhanced initiative for a debt relief of US$ 3.8 billion. In this paper, the possible effects of this debt relief are analysed using a social...
Working Paper
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– Arbitration as the Alternative to Present, Unsuccessful Debt Strategies
After analysing present, unsuccessful strategies of granting too little too late, a fair, transparent arbitration process (FTAP) on debts modelled after the principles of US Chapter 9 insolvency for debtors with governmental powers (municipalities) is needed. It would respect debtors’ sovereignty...
Working Paper
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To achieve the poverty reduction goal, HIPC countries need to mainstream gender considerations into their PRSPs (poverty reduction strategy papers). Mounting worldwide evidence that greater gender equality correlates with high economic growth and less poverty means that to succeed, poverty reduction...
Working Paper
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– Analysis and Recommendations on LDC Debt
This paper reviews the main obstacles to human and social development posed by the current external debt burdens of the least development countries. In particular, it analyses the shortcomings of the mechanisms and thresholds used to assess the sustainability of debt levels in the HIPC Initiative...
Working Paper
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While growth has increased in Tanzania during the past five or six years, it is still too low to have a visible impact on poverty. Indeed, recent evidence suggests that the amounts of both income and non-income poverty are roughly the same as they were a decade ago. Since debt relief provided under...
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