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Publications (38)
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...
Background Note
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Introduction Only recently has the importance and potential of behavioural sciences been recognized as a critical tool to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This long-awaited recognition comes from the highest levels of the United Nations, with the Secretary-General recently issuing a...
Background Note
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Introduction The South African youth wage subsidy started in 2014 to increase employment and create jobs for low-wage youth. The subsidy was temporarily raised in value and expanded to reach more workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the lockdown period, the government used the subsidy to...
Background Note
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– The South African experience
Introduction: data for development Globally, one of the key factors associated with increasing use of data to inform policy-making has been the increased availability of new administrative data sources. In 2014, the National Treasury of South Africa (NT) pioneered the development of new tax...
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...
Background Note
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IntroductionThe literature on the concept, measurement, causes, and correlates of sub-national institutional governance is not new. From the seminal work of Putnam et al. (1993) to recent attempts by Iddawela et al. (2021), several authors have explored untapped spaces that contribute to our...
Background Note
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– Insights from Kenya
In this background note, we examine how different firms and sectors rebound or prevail in crises. We draw on insights from the performance (upgrading potential) of Kenyan horticulture, tea, and leather export firms during two recent, but very different, shocks to the Kenyan economy. The first is the...
Background Note
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– Insights from the sub-Saharan African experience
Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic poses important risks for people’s health and economic wellbeing. While the full socio-economic consequences remain uncertain, the pandemic’s impact on the labour market has become an issue of global concern. Especially low-income earners with jobs in precarious...
Background Note
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– Decoupling production of the vaccine from its development
Development and production of a COVID-19 vaccine There is a high risk that the intellectual property (IP) rights of a COVID-19 vaccine will effectively block people in many poorer countries from accessing it. To avoid this situation, I propose that a practical solution would be to separate out the...
Background Note
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– The case of Ghana
The first two cases of COVID-19 were reported in Ghana on 12 March 2020 by the health ministry. As a first response, on 15 March all public gatherings were banned, all schools and universities were closed, and on 23 March all of the county's borders were closed. In the interest of public safety, a...
Background Note
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– Priorities and trade-offs
In this note, I will refer to current efforts to harness artificial intelligence (AI) in the push back against COVID-19, note its promises, limitations, potential pitfalls, and identify priorities for developing countries. Artificial Intelligence is the use of algorithms, data, and statistics to...
Background Note
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– The case of Kenya
The COVID-19 pandemic has now spread to over 180 countries, including several countries in sub-Saharan Africa.1 Kenya reported its first COVID-19 case on 13 March 2020. By 31 March the number of confirmed cases had risen to 59, with over 70 per cent of infections in Nairobi. As at 22 April 2020, the...
Background Note
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– The case of South Africa
What has the government of South Africa done with respect to COVID-19 measures of mitigation and suppression? The first COVID-19 positive case was confirmed on 5 March 2020. Just ten days later, South Africa had 61 positive cases and President Ramaphosa addressed the country, calling for measures to...
Background Note
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– The case of India
Several countries have enacted lockdown measures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to protect their health systems and reduce the number of mortalities. One of the most extreme national lockdown measures has been taken by the government of India, with over 1.3 billion persons put under a strictly...
– 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...
– 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
pdf
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
pdf
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...
Displaying 32 of 38 results