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Publications (34)
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...
– But not without some unintended results
About three years have passed since the South African government introduced the COVID-19 Temporary Employer-Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) in response to the pandemic and associated lockdown regulations. Given the extent of unemployment in South Africa even prior to the pandemic, the policy’s primary...
– 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...
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...
Simon Kuznets’ pipe dream was to have economic inequality data that rarely existed when he was writing. What are the pipe dreams of today’s development economists? How about a rigorous development economics book, or set of books, you could read in a spare hour or two? A book that provides an...
– Evidence from tax administrative and survey data in Zambia
Like most other countries, the government of Zambia introduced restrictions to control COVID-19, which considerably curtailed normal economic activity. A new WIDER and World Bank working paper, a multi-institutional collaboration of UNU-WIDER, the World Bank, the Zambia Revenue Authority and the...
Blog
According to the World Bank, Indonesia has reached the upper-middle income status in 2019 after spending almost two decades in the lower-middle income country group. Despite the setback of COVID-19 the Indonesian government aspires to become a ‘developed’ country by 2045, when the country will...
– 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...
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...
– Three key questions for understanding shifts in global poverty
In 2010 and the following years, there was attention to the fact that much of global poverty had shifted to middle-income countries (for example here, here, and here). The world’s poor hadn’t moved of course, but the countries that are home to large numbers of poor people had got better off on...
Moçambique reportou o seu primeiro caso da COVID-19 em 22 de Março de 2020. As estimativas do PIB sugerem um forte efeito da pandemia, com uma redução de sete dos nove dos sectores de actividade analisados. No entanto, o sector agrícola – um dos mais importantes – registou um aumento de 9%, que pode...
– How five African countries fared
The number of people living in poverty around the world is estimated to have increased by half a billion people due to the COVID-19 crisis. The African continent has suffered at least US$100 billion in economic costs in 2020, measured by the reduction in trade revenues and financial flows due to 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...
Tanzania, similar to most sub-Saharan countries, reported its first COVID-19 cases in March 2020. While GDP estimates suggest that the economy was less hard hit than in other African countries, some sectors have nevertheless experienced negative growth. Even with contained GDP contractions in 2020...
In 2020, the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic caused an economic crisis that disrupted the Ugandan labour market. How large were the associated income losses across different industries and population groups? To what extent did the general tax-benefit system mitigate the adverse effects of the...
Displaying 16 of 34 results