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Publications (28)
The 2022 Annual Lecture was delivered by Daron Acemoğlu. His lecture challenged techno-optimism, which maintains that technological advances will ultimately benefit society at large, and discussed what the path of digital technologies and artificial intelligence imply for the future. Artificial...
– Can legal reforms trump social norms?
Almost a century has passed since women in South Asia first raised a demand for equal rights in property, especially land, the single most important productive resource in most developing economies. Over time, the struggle broadened and diversified. Despite resistance from conservative lawmakers...
As the UN celebrated its 75th anniversary the 2020 WIDER Annual Lecture was delivered by Lord Mark Malloch-Brown. He discussed whether the UN can reinvent itself, or whether it will sink into irrelevance. The UN is buffeted by headwinds, some new and some almost as old as the institution itself...
The 2019 WIDER Annual Lecture was given by Santiago Levy at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, where he discussed the challenges of social protection in economies with large informal sectors, such as in Latin America. Social protection systems are an essential...
Over the past three decades, there has been notable progress on certain key dimensions of gender equality. Almost universally the gender gap in education has been narrowed and commitments to secure equal access to employment have advanced. However, the rate of progress towards gender equality in...
– Has democracy failed African economies?
The 2018 WIDER Annual Lecture was given by Professor Ernest Aryeetey. He discussed the political economy of structural transformation in Africa and the lecture looked at how various political regimes and economic policies have shaped the African development trajectory, and what are the necessary...
– Measuring global progress toward zero poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals
In 2017 the WIDER Annual Lecture was given by Sabina Alkire. She discussed the implications of using the Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) and other poverty measures for achieving the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly Sustainable Development Goal 1 — to...
In 2016 WIDER Annual Lecture 20 was given by Professor Martin Ravallion. He discussed the economic and political issues surrounding the use of direct interventions, such as cash transfers and in kind contributions, against poverty. There is much hope for these interventions, but also much...
In 2015 WIDER Annual Lecture 19 was given by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen. He discussed the overall challenge of sustainable and human-focused development including new and old challenges. Much progress has been made on the old issues of poverty and inequality, but there remains much to be done. On...
Research Uptake
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Through the Development Under Climate Change (DUCC) project UNU-WIDER supported efforts by the government of South Africa to develop an integrated approach to assess the effects of climate change on the national economy. Climate analysis for economic policy-making Strategic policy decisions that...
– The Foundation for Sustainable Peace
President Ahtisaari reminds us that social capital is a vital and too often neglected precondition for sustainable prosperity. Highlighting the good that economic growth has done in India and China, he joins Professor Amartya Sen in arguing that the significant question is not only how we achieve...
– A Political Economy Approach
In his lecture Professor Timmer highlights the vital, and precarious, period of structural transformation, when agriculture represents a declining share of the economy and labour moves to the cities. Focusing on the difficulties and paradoxes that developing economies face when navigating this...
– Fact and Fiction in Development
Lant Pritchett’s key line of argument in this lecture is that if the current formula that development agencies rely on for building state capability was sound, it should have worked by now. Moreover, success in building state capability typically comes from a struggle to replace bad institutions...
– New Opportunities and Strategies for Structural Transformation in Developing Countries
Structural transformation is a pre-requisite for sustained growth and poverty reduction — such was the conviction of development economists in the mid twentieth century. They demonstrated empirically that moving resources out of low-productivity primary activities sustains the productivity gains...
The unsettling years since 2007 have shown how unfit for the purpose the current international monetary and financial system is. On 9 December 2010, Professor José Antonio Ocampo delivered the 14th WIDER Annual Lecture at the UN headquarters in New York, formulating global recommendations for a...
The lecture will explore the theoretical and empirical links between international trade and economic development over a wide range of space and time, drawing on models and ideas based on his previous work and that of others. Special attention will be paid to such topics as the spice trade, the Silk...
– The Future in the Past?
This lecture examines recent changes in the significance of developing countries in the world economy from a longer term historical perspective. From 1820 to 1950 developing countries experienced a sharp decline in their dominant share of world GDP and a rapid divergence in their per capita income...
The world economy entered the 21st century expanding as rapidly as ever. Developing countries are now major drivers of global growth. But not all developing countries are benefiting equally, and the future prospects of those lagging behind depend crucially on how the world community responds to the...
Annual Lecture
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– Facts, Interpretations, and Policies
People in poor countries live shorter lives than people in rich countries so that, if we take income and health together, there is more inequality in the world than if we consider income alone. Yet international inequalities in life expectancy decreased for many years after 1945, and the strong...
Annual Lecture
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– Inequality and Injustice in our Global Economy
The Lecture addresses one of the core issues in development: how can low income countries achieve faster rates of economic growth? Reviewing the lessons to be drawn from recent history, particularly with regard to Latin America and Asia, Rodrik concludes that successful policies are invariably built...
Annual Lecture
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The Lecture addresses one of the core issues in development: how can low income countries achieve faster rates of economic growth? Reviewing the lessons to be drawn from recent history, particularly with regard to Latin America and Asia, Rodrik concludes that successful policies are invariably built...
Annual Lecture
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Kaushik Basu is known for the expert way in which he brings the tools of economic and philosophical analysis to bear on current development issues. In recent years his interests have included questions concerned with international labour standards and worker rights, particularly those related to the...
Annual Lecture
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Jeffrey Williamson is renowned as both an exemplary teacher and an outstanding scholar of economic history. His work has covered—and continues to cover—a wide range of historical and contemporary topics, including growth, trade, migration, living standards and inequality. All these themes are...
Annual Lecture
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– A Neglected Dimension of Development
In this lecture Frances Stewart expands on some of the central themes of her studies for WIDER. She documents the ways in which political power, social demarcations and economic differences combine to produce horizontal inequalities between population subgroups within countries, and the impact of...
Annual Lecture
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In this thought-provoking lecture, Professor Bhagwati presents us quite a different perspective on globalization than what we get in the polarized debates in the media between its proponents and opponents. He first argues that the different dimensions of globalization may have different impacts...
Annual Lecture
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– a Critique of the Transatlantic Consensus
In this thought-provoking lecture, Professor Atkinson focuses on the rise in income inequality in a large number of industrialized countries over the last two decades. This phenomenon, which first became apparent in the United States and the United Kingdom, is now occurring in a number of other...
– Moving Toward the Post-Washington Consensus
Professor Stiglitz provides a thorough critique of the 'Washington consensus', a set of beliefs that has become highly influential. His cogent analysis shows that while certain elements of the Washington consensus - for example, low inflation and low budget deficits - might have been relevant for...
Annual Lecture
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Institutions and the way they evolve shape economic performance. Institutions affect economic performance by determining (together with the technology employed) the cost of transating and producing. They are composed of formal rules, of informal constraints and of their enforcement characteristics...
Displaying 28 of 28 results