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Blog
The tragedy for the Afghan people of the Taliban re-taking control of the country in August 2021 is the denouement of a process 20 years in the making. The sudden collapse of the Afghan government and the national security forces over the course of a few days is not a “surprise” to anyone, but was a...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Doing Too Much Too Soon
From the book:
Building State Capability
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Building State Capability
– Evidence, Analysis, Action
This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence. It is free to read at Oxford Scholarship Online and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations. Governments play a major role in the development process, and constantly introduce...
Research Brief
pdf
Social insurance has not succeeded in reducing fiscal deficits and expanding coverage to more beneficiaries in Latin America Social assistance has had a greater impact on poverty and inequality than social insurance In lower-middle-income countries, social assistance programmes have not expanded as...
Research Brief
During the 1990s, inequality in Ecuador increased because of a natural disaster and deep economic and financial crisis, as well as the impact of liberalization of the trade and financial sectors on labour markets Falling income equality in Ecuador during the 2000s partly coincides with the rise to...
Research Brief
– An Empirical Analysis
Left-of-centre governments emphasized fiscally-prudent but more equitable macroeconomic, tax, social expenditure and labour policies A drop in the premium paid to skilled workers following a rapid expansion of secondary education decreased wage inequality Addressing continued inequality In recent...
Research Brief
Integration of Latin America into the international economy over the past quarter century has led to faster export growth, but not to faster GDP or productivity growth Contrary to mainstream analysis, under the current market reforms countries have underperformed as compared to the prior period of...
Blog
30 October 2014 Dominik Etienne and Annett Victorero The last decade has witnessed a revival of concern over the impact of high-income concentration on economic development and wellbeing. The global distribution of income has for decades resembled a ‘champagne glass’ (figure 1). Today, the top 20...
Research Brief
After tax reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, income inequality increased in many Latin American countries The tax reforms of the 2000s have been more equalizing in terms of income inequality: Argentina, Honduras and Nicaragua have seen the most redistribution of income Taxation remains unequalizing in...
Working Paper
pdf
– An Alternative Approach to Theory, Measurement and Practice
The coherence and effectiveness of engagement with the world’s ‘fragile and conflict-affected states’—beyond ethical imperatives and geo-strategic considerations—turns on answers to two vexing questions. First, on what defensible basis is any given country, at any given historical moment, deemed to...
Working Paper
pdf
Many public sector reforms in developing countries fail to make governments more functional. This is typically because reforms introduce new solutions that do not fit the contexts in which they are being placed. This situation reflects what has recently been called the ‘capability trap’ in...
– Policy Changes and Lessons
For the last quarter of the twentieth century, Latin America suffered from low growth, rising inequality, and frequent financial crises. However, since the beginning of the twenty-first century the region has enhanced its growth performance, reduced social polarization, and improved macroeconomic...
Research Brief
pdf
The five Paris principles of effective aid were only nominally successfully implemented in the state-building process of South Sudan. While the importance of the first principle, ownership, was highlighted in development plans in Southern Sudan, capacity limitations restricted the role of the local...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper presents the case of World Bank support to the mass titling component of the Cambodia Land Management and Administration Project. This was a project for which there was clear national demand, as evidenced by the fact that the Cambodian government had already attempted to implement mass...
Working Paper
pdf
– Concepts, with Examples from India
The incredibly low levels of learning and the generally dysfunctional public sector schooling systems in many (though not all) developing countries are the result of a capability trap (Pritchett et al. 2010). Two phenomena reinforce persistent failure of schooling systems to produce adequate...
Displaying 16 of 69 results