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Publications (13)
Working Paper
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– Evidence from aid effectiveness data
The Principles of Effective Development Co-operation provide an important reference point for foreign aid and international development assistance. Although the principles—country ownership, focus on results, inclusive partnerships, and transparency and mutual accountability—are framed to support...
Working Paper
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Affirmative action, or positive discrimination favouring the members of marginalized populations, is a key policy approach for addressing group-based inequalities along ethnic, religious, and racial lines (e.g. horizontal inequalities). It is adopted in dozens of countries around the world in the...
Working Paper
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– A systematic literature review
This paper provides a systematic review of quantitative literature investigating the success of affirmative action policies in addressing socio-economic inequalities between ethnic groups in education and employment. We focus on two of the most influential national experiences: caste-based...
Working Paper
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– A systematic review of the literature
Despite the good intentions behind affirmative action policies to mediate ‘horizontal inequalities’ between ethnic groups, the evidence on their effectiveness remains open to debate. In this study, we conduct a systematic review of the literature with global scope, to add new clarity on whether...
Around the world, the pandemic, and the measures taken to address it, have had far reaching effects on poverty, inequality, and governance. And even as the need for global action has increased, many wealthy countries have turned inwards — with closed borders, stockpiling of vaccines, and...
Working Paper
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– Insights from inequality research
Using illustrations from research on inequality, this paper offers evidence on the strengths of ‘behavioural synthesis’, i.e. the reconciliation between neoclassical and behavioural economics.We compare how theoretical models of absolute and relative inequality have evolved from assumptions of...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from India
A growing body of research shows that COVID-19 both reflects and exacerbates existing inequalities. However, there are significant gaps in this research area with respect to ‘horizontal’ or group-based inequalities in Global South countries. Lack of group-disaggregated data often contributes. In this...
Working Paper
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The relationship between social mobility and inequality is well studied in the literature, but far greater attention has been paid to ‘vertical’ than to ‘horizontal’ inequality. This paper focuses on mobility and horizontal inequality between ethnic, racial, and culturally-defined groups. Not only...
Blog
– Four implications for work in development
As a political scientist specializing in the comparative politics of development, including particular attention to issues of governance and democracy, I have followed this year’s World Development Report with special interest. I have not been alone. WDRs usually attract attention, but this year’s...
Blog
The ‘Responding to crises’ conference was marked by wide range of topics. Opening the event was former Finnish Defence Minister and UN Special Rapporteur, Elisabeth Rehn, who gave us the benefit of her experience, not least in the impact of war on women and girls, and the need to follow up on the...
I had the pleasure of attending UNU-WIDER’s ‘Responding to crises’ conference last week. The theme was highly topical and session topics far-reaching, which makes the task of teasing out core ideas difficult. It may seem, as a result, that research on crises occurs in silos. However, as a poverty...
Blog
30 October 2013 Roger Williamson The UNU-WIDER meeting held last week in New York on the topic of fragility and aid argued forcefully that you cannot ‘fix’ failed states as you would a broken window. Drawing on over 80 papers from the governance and fragility theme of the ReCom—Research and...
Blog
Rachel M. Gisselquist and Miguel Niño-Zarazúa Over the past decade, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have become a staple of research in development economics. Proponents of RCTs have advocated for their use as the best means of identifying ‘what works’ in development, while sceptics voice strong...
Displaying 13 of 13 results