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Publications (21)
– The new structural financial economics framework
The primary role of finance is to serve the ‘real economy’¬—the part of the economy that produces goods and services. Yet in practice, the financial sector often excessively indulges in speculative activities rather than performing its main functions, such as channeling saving for productive...
In our book, we examine Chile's economic, social, and development policies over the past six decades. The focal point is the enduring influence of the neoliberal model—a model that took root in the mid-1970s under authoritarian conditions and persisted through democratic governments, albeit with...
Donors increasingly speak of locally led aid response, but often do not walk the walk. Case in point is the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the humanitarian and development agency of the largest donor country in the world. In late 2021, USAID set a target that 25% of its...
Blog
Amadou Boly is Special Assistant in the Economic Governance and Knowledge Management Complex at the African Development Bank (ADB). Before that, he was a research fellow and a coordinator of the visitor programme at UNU-WIDER. In this blog, he reflects on his journey since leaving UNU-WIDER and...
– Time for a more ambitious redistribution and reparations agenda
The famous 1920s book The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is the classic analogy for the American dream of meritocracy —that any person can achieve a better life regardless of their background— though the story illustrates the fragility of the dream. It also shows an age of prosperity just...
Blog
– UNU-WIDER Visiting PhD and Scholar programmes
Every year about 20 visitors come to Helsinki to find a new home at UNU-WIDER in our Visiting Scholars and PhD Fellowship programmes. Although their stay is only three months, the connections they make last much longer, with past visitors’ continued engagement through our research opportunities...
Simon Kuznets’ pipe dream was to have economic inequality data that rarely existed when he was writing. What are the pipe dreams of today’s development economists? How about a rigorous development economics book, or set of books, you could read in a spare hour or two? A book that provides an...
– Rethinking how much parents’ influence children’s human capital in low- and middle-income countries
The measure of human capital —the economic value of one’s skills and experience— acknowledges that investments in people’s cognitive and emotional skills, and health and nutrition, increase their productivity. Beyond economic gains, human capital is widely considered critical for many dimensions of...
The influenza pandemic of 1918 (the Spanish Flu) is by far the greatest humanitarian disaster caused by an infectious disease in modern history. It infected over a quarter of the world’s population and killed over 50 million people. The brunt of the pandemic was borne by countries in the periphery...
Blog
It was surreal to take a springtime walk along the harbor in Helsinki on my way to UNU-WIDER’s headquarter offices for the first time. My initial application to the UNU-WIDER PhD Fellowship programme had been rejected. In 2021, I applied again and was genuinely surprised to be accepted —shocked...
Blog
I now work as an assistant professor at Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. I visited UNU-WIDER in 2017, when I was in the third year of my PhD in development economics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. During...
Blog
– My experience in an online cohort of visiting PhD Fellows
Everyone that has been engaged in a PhD experience agrees that the whole process is a tough and sometimes lonely challenge. However, the visiting PhD fellowship at UNU-WIDER equipped me with additional discussions, guidance and networks needed to overcome these challenges. If you are now starting...
– Three key questions for understanding shifts in global poverty
In 2010 and the following years, there was attention to the fact that much of global poverty had shifted to middle-income countries (for example here, here, and here). The world’s poor hadn’t moved of course, but the countries that are home to large numbers of poor people had got better off on...
Blog
Virgi Agita Sari joined UNU-WIDER as a visiting PhD fellow in the summer of 2017. Coming from Indonesia, Virgi joined five other fellows from across the globe. Upon completing the three-month fellowship, she returned to the University of Manchester to finish her PhD in Development Policy. In 2019...
In introducing Staffan Lindberg’s keynote at the WIDER Development Conference, UNU-WIDER Senior Research Fellow and political scientist Rachel Gisselquist says that the COVID-19 pandemic is linked to new restrictions on rights and freedoms at a time when experts have been warning about the decline...
– Global value chains and transaction-level customs data
Over 70% of global trade goes through global value chains (GVCs). For firms in developing countries, insertion into GVCs has been associated with economic and social benefits. Yet, critics also point to power imbalances between lead firms in developed countries and supplier firms in the Global South...
Displaying 16 of 21 results