Filter by...
Reset all
Publications (106)
Working Paper
pdf
– Indonesia and India compared
We examine the nature of labour market inequality in Indonesia and India, using a common conceptual approach drawing from the job ladder framework. In the framework, we differentiate between self-employment and wage-informal and between formal, upper tier informal, and lower tier informal jobs. We...
Working Paper
pdf
– Findings from national labour surveys in five Latin American countries
This paper provides a comparative summary of recent national statistics from five Latin American countries on employment losses and gains during the peak COVID-19 years compared with pre-pandemic levels. As part of its work on the impact of the pandemic on informal workers, the Women in Informal...
Working Paper
pdf
– Lessons from relief for comprehensive social protection
This paper considers the implications of COVID-19 relief measures for the building and extension of comprehensive and universal social protection systems. It highlights three key areas emerging from the crisis, which are likely to affect the shape of social protection systems moving forward. These...
Working Paper
pdf
Throughout 2021, fiscal stimulus packages were introduced to jump-start the COVID-19 ‘post-pandemic’ economic recovery process. While calls for economic recovery packages that promise to ‘build back better’ have come from many directions, the under-allocation of recovery resources directed at...
Working Paper
pdf
– The sub-Saharan experience
COVID-19 cases were first confirmed in March 2020 in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. These countries put in place several stringent measures, including lockdowns, to contain the spread of the virus. Various policies were also rolled out to address the disruption in economic activities, to mitigate...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case study of a foreign-owned mining operation in Tanzania
Based on a case study of an anonymous mining company in Tanzania, this study assesses the implementation of the local content (LC) regulations and guidelines in the country. The analysis focused on the key LC aspects of the direct workforce (employment and training), procurement of goods and...
Working Paper
pdf
– Examining worker flows during normal and recessionary periods in South Africa
This paper examines employment transitions in the South African labour market. Using the Post-Apartheid Labour Market Series, it analyses flows between the formal sector, informal sector, and unemployment, paying specific attention to how these flows differ during recessions. It explicitly considers...
Working Paper
pdf
In a bid to realize its development aspirations, Tanzania has made concerted efforts to increase public investment, particularly in the last decade. A significant proportion of these investments are financed by contracting debt, manifested by the rapid accumulation of public debt, especially...
Working Paper
pdf
We investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on income levels, poverty, and inequality in both the immediate aftermath and during the uneven recovery until December 2021 using high-frequency household survey data from India. We find that the average household incomes dropped sharply during the...
Working Paper
pdf
The issue of employer power is underemphasized in the development literature. The default model is usually one of competitive labour markets. This assumption matters for analysis and policy prescription. There is growing evidence that the competitive labour markets assumption is not valid for...
Working Paper
pdf
Expansion of social protection reach among workers in the large informal economy represents a persisting and thorny challenge in the development context. In Mainland Tanzania, several domestically led policy reforms have been introduced to increasingly expand social protection for informal workers...
Working Paper
pdf
– Exploring past policy trajectories and simulating future paths
Tanzania has expanded its social protection framework significantly over the past decade, but the country continues to grapple with important gender inequalities. This paper examines, first, the evolution and effects of Tanzania’s social protection policies since the 2000s, from the perspective of...
Working Paper
pdf
– Experimental evidence from sub-Saharan Africa
Can digital labour market platforms reduce search frictions in either formal or informal labour markets? We study this question using a randomized experiment embedded in a tracer study of the work transitions of graduates from technical and vocational colleges in Mozambique. We implement an...
Working Paper
pdf
Tanzania has experienced relatively strong and stable economic growth accompanied by social stability over the past two decades. The country is also pursuing an ambitious development plan with significant employment objectives. For development to be fully inclusive, specific attention must be paid...
Working Paper
pdf
– Implications for policy
This paper analyses factors for the declining trend in clove exports in Zanzibar using time series data that were collected between 1980 and 2020 and analysed using the vector error correction model, complemented with qualitative analysis. Clove production, producer price, world price, gross...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper makes the case that current social contracts are often inadequate, irrelevant, or unjust for informal workers. It outlines three possible future scenarios: the bad old contract, an even worse contract, and a better new contract. Under the bad old contract, informal workers lacked legal...
Displaying 16 of 106 results