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Publications (32)
Blog
In this interview Professor Nora Lustig, Samuel Z. Stone Professor of Latin American Economics at Tulane University, talks about the importance of assessing the quality of income inequality data, the reasons behind the declining trend in income inequality in Latin America, and the Commitment to...
Blog
At the UNU-WIDER Inequality conference September 2014 we interviewed Murray Leibbrandt, Professor of Economics at the University of Cape Town on issues of inequality in South Africa. Leibrant begins by positing that South Africa, like Brazil, is a microcosm of the world. This comment picks up on the...
Research Brief
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– How much are we willing to allow top earners to squeeze the poor?
The majority of income inequality occurs at the tails of the income distribution The Gini coefficient does not provide a representative measure of income inequality When the top 10% of income earners expand their share of national income it often appears to be to the detriment of the poorest 40%...
Blog
– Country Comparisons and Conceptual Approaches
18 December 2014 Roger Williamson In an earlier article I reviewed a number of the high-profile contributions to the September 2014 conference on inequality. It is now time to dig deeper into the material presented at the event. This article features a few of the country case studies and...
Blog
29 September 2014 Tony Addison As the Finnish autumn embraces us, we can reflect on a very successful conference on ‘Inequality: Measurement, Trends, Impacts and Policies’, held in Helsinki on 5-6 September. UNU-WIDER welcomed 350+ people from all over the world, with an especially good turnout of...
Blog
26 September 2014 Roger Williamson Huge interest in the WIDER Inequality Conference (5-6 September) Inequality is big news. Whether you think Thomas Piketty’s book is primarily long-run economic history or a prediction of future trends for returns to capital and labour, it is still a surprise that a...
Research Brief
Fragile and conflict-affected states, like Sierra Leone, can maintain a strong public financial management structure if they are able to find foreign support for administrative capacity and sufficient domestic political and executive support. PFM legal framework, budget planning and scrutiny, still...
Blog
27 August 2014 Tony Addison Some of you in the northern hemisphere may still be on your well-earned summer breaks. Here at UNU-WIDER we had a pause in July—for a very warm Finnish summer—after our very successful June conference in Hanoi. It is now full speed ahead for our conference on ‘Inequality...
Research Brief
Civic education programmes can have meaningful and relatively long-lasting effects in terms of increasing political information, feelings of empowerment, and mobilizing individuals to engage in political participation. Civic education programmes are much less likely to affect more ‘deep-seated’...
Research Brief
pdf
The National Solidarity Programme (NSP) serves as a success story that has improved many Afghan lives and laid the groundwork for potential longer-term development. The NSP had a positive effect on access to drinking water and electricity, acceptance of democratic processes, perceptions of economic...
Research Brief
– Exploring the Fatal Flaw
Aid to Haiti has not been effective due to failure of the country’s political and economic elites to participate and assist in the development process. US foreign policy has in some cases reinforced the tendency for elites to personally profit from aid initiatives. Haiti has received more than US$20...
Position Paper
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This position paper on Aid, Governance, and Fragility was prepared by UNUWIDER under the ReCom programme of Research (Re) and Communication (Com) on foreign aid. It aims to provide an up-to-date overview and guide to two topics of central importance to international development: governance and fragility. This discussion is grounded in the central questions of the ReCom programme: What works, what could work, what is scalable, and what is transferable in foreign aid? We also consider the related question, what does not work?Governance and fragility are sometimes treated as entirely separate...
Research Brief
pdf
A secure environment is an important component of successful economic development initiatives. Policing reforms in African states have been disappointing; the image of state policy and police–community relations remain poor. States that have enacted successful police reforms have had four important...
Research Brief
pdf
Japan’s post-war liberalizing reforms were a success. This was partly due to the fact that US occupation preserved the strength of national institutions and made effective use of their capacity. Improvement in the scope of the state and the strength of Afghan institutions has been weak, despite the...
Blog
30 October 2013 Roger Williamson The UNU-WIDER meeting held last week in New York on the topic of fragility and aid argued forcefully that you cannot ‘fix’ failed states as you would a broken window. Drawing on over 80 papers from the governance and fragility theme of the ReCom—Research and...
Blog
30 October 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén Despite many successful transitions towards peace and multiparty electoral systems there are still 47 fragile states and economies in the world according to the OECD. Around 1.5 billion people are affected by conflict and political instability. Most of them live on...
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