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Blog
As greenhouse gases once again climb to record levels, countries are under pressure to make the move to a low-carbon economy. Policies that move in this direction are needed to mitigate against the worst impacts of climate change, but policy choices will have winners and losers. As it is crucial to...
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UNU-WIDER operates at the intersection of research, capacity development, and policy engagement, with a mission to improve the lives of the world’s poorest people. Each year, we publish hundreds of papers, open access books, journal articles, convene dozens of events and capacity development...
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Our Institute’s expansive international research contributions, consisting of over 800 WIDER Working Papers in the 2019–23 work programme, delve deep into the development challenges the world faces. In the following country profiles, we pivot our focus towards Ecuador and Indonesia, serving as...
![ZANMOD group photo](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Blog/Image/ZANMOD-team-group-photo-227px.jpg?itok=-igoO5jY)
– Latest addition to the SOUTHMOD programme
ZANMOD, the tax-benefit microsimulation model for Zanzibar, was launched in November 2023. The model will aid local authorities and researchers in understanding how taxation and social protection policies can be improved to reduce poverty and enhance equality.The research and coding work for the...
Blog
As we conclude the groundbreaking years of the 2019–2023 work programme on transforming economies, states, and societies, we reflect on the milestones achieved and anticipate the journey ahead.In 2019, I assumed the role of Director at UNU-WIDER and initiated the planning of the new work programme...
![Denise Wall at the WIDER Development Conference 2023. Image: Alexander Zach](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_150x200/public/Blog/Image/Cover-photo-Denise-Blog.jpg?itok=mP6-a-27)
With the deadline for achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals just seven years away, there is an increasing sense of urgency over the question of how to finance the ambitious framework, particularly in lower- and middle-income countries.Experts met at the recent WIDER Development Conference...
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– Welcome to the three new Latin American teams
How would progressive income taxation affect income inequality in Bolivia? What are the costs and benefits of implementing a state pension in Colombia? Which social protection policies reduce income poverty in Peru? In addition to the nine pre-existing countries with their own tailored tax-benefit...
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In Mozambique, Tanzania, South Africa, Uganda, and elsewhere, UNU-WIDER is on the ground to support national development plans, collect and create data for economic analysis and national and international policy processes, and build the capacity of government officials to develop national economies...
Technical Note
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– The case of Girinka in Rwanda
SOUTHMOD tax-benefit microsimulation models may in some cases oversimulate taxes or benefits, generating greater expenditure, a greater number of beneficiaries, or greater amounts of taxes or taxpayers than reported in administrative data. Drawing on an example of a social benefit policy in Rwanda...
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– Meet our tax-benefit microsimulation team in Rwanda!
How can Global South countries improve their tax and social protection systems? One way is to take advantage of tools that help assess the impact of different policies. Rwanda is the latest country to join the SOUTHMOD collaboration, which will enable UNU-WIDER and Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) to...
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– The case of Mozambique
Designing and implementing public policies requires caution to guarantee the best use of scarce resources, especially in middle- and lower-income countries. One of the ways to achieve this goal is to simulate the potential tax and benefit impacts of different policies that are under consideration...
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– Food for thought from the DRM programme
Domestic revenue mobilization (DRM) and taxation have gained prominence lately on the global agenda, most recently with the resolution for the United Nations (UN) to lead the global discourse on tax rules. As we approach the halfway point to Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)...
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My motivation for doing economics research comes from the wish to see every human being have their basic needs met and enjoy their life. My interest is in public economics. This knowledge helps me to analyze how state economic policies affect the population and thus helps me find the best policies...
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– Meet our tax-benefit microsimulation team in Viet Nam!
How can Vietnamese policymakers improve their policy choices related to social protection and tax policies? Who are the experts providing evidence on different policy scenarios and their pros and cons to local decision makers? Meet our SOUTHMOD national team working in Hanoi who are leading the...
Technical Note
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This note describes methods to derive employment-to-unemployment transition shares across industries during the COVID-19 pandemic and to use these shares in SOUTHMOD tax-benefit microsimulation models to adjust relevant labour market variables. The first method entails the derivation of industry...
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The first of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is to end poverty in all its forms, everywhere. The monumental task — a long-time dream of humanity — is followed by 16 more goals under the 2030 Agenda. Though they are all interlinked, to even contemplate their achievement requires a deep well...
Technical Note
pdf
Agricultural subsidies may have significant productive and distributional consequences, and policy-makers need to be able to assess these impacts as a part of the overall tax and benefit policy. Microsimulation models offer a tool for such analysis also in developing countries, but their coverage...
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Millions of Africans lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but state social security systems were of little help to people who lost their income.This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, UNU...
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– New perspectives on travelling for research
Working for an international organisation presents a host of challenges, given the vast nature of tasks that one must surmount in a fast paced and changing environment. It might be a roller coaster, but also satisfying by providing many worthwhile experiences. The latter was my sensation during my...
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Are there enough tax payers to generate the revenue needed by governments to reduce poverty? How adequate are the social security arrangements that already exist? Anyone who has started to probe these issues will know that the answers to such questions can be hard to pin down. This is why the...
Blog
How do crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic influence inequality and the other way around? This year’s UN Day Dresden put a spotlight on “Inequalities in Crises”. In an interview, we got up close and personal with our keynote speaker Dr Pia Rattenhuber (UNU-WIDER), an expert in development economics...
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In summer 2020 the SOUTHMOD team set out, with partners, to analyse the impact of government policies on protecting households from getting poorer and avoiding societies from becoming more unequal. Now we are releasing a cross-country comparative study that analyses the distributional effects of the...
Technical Note
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This note sets out two different methods on how to adjust incomes in the microdata underlying the standard SOUTHMOD models to reflect a sudden shock, in this case the COVID-19 shock, as done in the accompanying working paper by Lastunen et al. (2021). The note first describes how industry-specific...
Technical Note
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This technical note presents a modelling approach used in Lastunen et al. (2021) where tax and benefit policies are scaled to reflect their actual duration during a single calendar year. It can be applied to tax-benefit microsimulation models implemented in the EUROMOD software. The method is...
Technical Note
pdf
This note describes how the counterfactual datasets in the working paper by Lastunen et al. (2021) have been reweighted, for each country analysed, to the ‘pre-crisis’ time point of 31 March 2020. The procedure consists of five main steps. The note forms part of a series of technical notes that...
Technical Note
pdf
This note has been produced alongside a WIDER working paper assessing the effect of the Unemployment Insurance benefit on income protection in Ecuador. The aim of this note is to describe the methodology used to assess the effect of the Unemployment Insurance through the simulation of transitions...
Technical Note
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This note, with emphasis on VAT and excise taxes, illustrates how indirect taxes are modelled in the context of GHAMOD, a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Ghana. GHAMOD is similar to the EUROMOD base platform, and its built-in Statistics Presenter Tool supports simple analyses of ex-ante policy...
Technical Note
pdf
– The case of UGAMOD
This note describes how to incorporate sub-national poverty lines into a SOUTHMOD country model using conditional constants within the constants function in such a way that the Statistics Presenter can generate national-level poverty statistics. The Uganda tax-benefit microsimulation model UGAMOD is...
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– Focus on data
This month, a partnership between UNU-WIDER and the Groningen Growth and Development Center (GGDC) brings a new database on economic transformation public. The first findings from the Economic Transformation Database (ETD), and what they could imply, are outlined in an article that appeared in the...
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– The role of tax and benefit policies in alleviating poverty and inequality
As the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, developing nations are struggling to deliver economic assistance and public services to their citizens, under pressures of fiscal constraints and tax revenue losses. To help governments in the developing world navigate through the crisis, it is...
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.
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Displaying 32 of 36 results