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Publications (76)
– Addressing the lack of data and observing the structure of the economy
With the recent democratic elections, Myanmar has entered a new development phase. To support this process there is amongst others a need for sound economic policies that have an economy-wide perspective. To enable such policies, appropriate analytical methods and the relevant underlying data, must...
Research Brief
In 1959 the Netherlands discovered vast natural gas resources in the North Sea. This discovery led to a rapid increase in the country’s national wealth. However in the 1960s the Netherlands experienced an economic crisis. The natural gas reserves were one of the causes of this crisis, as the Dutch...
Research Brief
– What Does the Evidence Say?
Donors are concerned about how their aid is used, especially how it affects public spending. For low-income countries that receive significant amounts of aid relative to GDP, most of the aid spent in the country is given to the government either directly, or by financing services that would...
– The latest evidence on the effectiveness of ODA
The death of aid has often been declared, and private capital flows as well as earnings from natural resources now far exceed official development assistance (ODA) in aggregate. However, the recent and sharp downturn in resource earnings, the ability of ODA to fund public goods that private capital...
Research Brief
A key pledge of the Paris Deceleration of 2005 was that aid flows would be made more predictable. This is a key goal as aid shortfalls can cause a government to disproportionately cut their investments, while sudden spikes in aid can lead to a dramatic boost in government consumption. The majority...
Research Brief
It is predicted that the global financial crisis will negatively affect developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa both through a reduction in Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) caused by the shrinking (or stagnating) of the economies of many major donors, and by a reduction in overseas trade due...
– The impact on equality in South Africa
The impact of medical deductions and medical credits on income inequality is a subject of discussion in South Africa, as well as in many other countries, raising critical questions about the fairness of the medical tax system and the impact on affordability for the poor. An in-depth analysis of...
– The case of value-added tax in South Africa
In a democratic system, taxation is a critical part of the social contract between the state and its citizens. The tax system can be used to help address the unacceptably high levels of poverty, inequality, and unemployment in South Africa. An increase in VAT from 14% to 15% caused a modest rise in...
Research Brief
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Afghanistan has received vast amounts of development aid, but results may not be sufficiently robust. There is a limited menu of acceptable options for institutional arrangements, leading to a high dependence on external resources, technical expertise, and institutional models. There is not a...
Research Brief
– The Role of Politics
In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Vertical Decentralization and Urban Service Delivery in South Africa: Does Politics Matter?’ Robert Cameron looks at the ways in which politics affects decentralization and service delivery in South Africa. To do this he looks at Cape Town, which is controlled by the...
Research Brief
On April 7 2012, following the death of President Mutharika, Joyce Banda was sworn in as Malawi's new president. Addressing parliament, President Banda made it clear that she intended to shake up Malawi, suggesting that she would repeal anti-homosexuality laws and take economic steps to improve...
– Five key issues and solutions
Taxation, and public sector matters more generally, are high on the agenda for the international development community. This is clearly reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG17 stipulates the need for improving domestic resource mobilization directly, and most of the other SDGs...
Along with several other African countries, Zambia has introduced a withholding system for value-added tax (VAT) to improve revenue collection and compliance. Even though VAT withholding policies are applied in several countries in Africa and similar industry-specific policies in Europe, empirical...
The first cases of COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa were reported in March 2020, and the impact of the pandemic has since rippled through the world and Africa. In response to the crisis and similarly to many of its peers, Ghana has enacted a variety of containment measures to confront the pandemic...
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...
Zambia’s economic growth has been flattening over the past decade. In 2020 economic prospects further worsened, following the onset of the pandemic, rising debt, and the Eurobond default. In this unprecedented scenario, there is the need to examine impacts on welfare and the mitigation role taxes...
Even though poverty and inequality have been of overriding concern in South Africa’s development policies and programmes since its democratization in 1994, measures of poverty, inequality, and related phenomena in the country do not show a clear improvement. In some important respects, they show...
– Are moderate increases more sustainable?
Domestic revenue mobilization (DRM) — the generation of government revenue from domestic tax and non-tax resources — plays a crucial role in building an enduring financing architecture for sustainable development. This brief summarizes the dynamics of DRM trends across the past four decades...
– A pathway to effective tax collection in South Africa
Many governments, particularly those in developing countries, have set an objective to improve tax revenue mobilization to offer more and better public services to their citizens. To develop effective revenue-raising strategies it is necessary to determine whether there is a tax revenue gap and gain...
– The distribution of household wealth in South Africa
South Africa is, by most contemporary measures, the most unequal country in the world. Yet, relatively little attention has been given to country’s wealth inequality. It is crucial to accurately measure the concentration of wealth inequality over time, identify the root causes of the current...
Research Brief
It is a widely accept projection that many low income countries (LICs) will remain low income for some time to come. Consequently, when assessing the policy options available to LICs it is important to take a long-term view. In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Aid, Fiscal Policy, Climate Change, and Growth’...
– A tax-benefit microsimulation
In an attempt to reduce poverty and vulnerability in a sustainable and cost-effective way, in 2003 the Zambian Government introduced a social cash transfer (SCT) scheme. However, a recent review of Zambia’s social assistance system revealed that this scheme provided insufficient coverage to many...
Much of the research on the impact of fiscal policy shocks on macroeconomic outcomes (e.g., fiscal multipliers) uses reduced-form modelling approaches such as vector auto-regressions to obtain empirical results. In a recent study1, we used this approach to estimate fiscal multipliers for South...
Policy Brief
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Growth, poverty reduction, and social peace are all undermined when public expenditure management and taxation are weak and when the fiscal deficit and public debt are not managed successfully. And large-scale aid and debt relief cannot work without a good fiscal system. The macroeconomic frameworks...
Policy Brief
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A multidisciplinary research project organized by UNU-WIDER shows that ongoing destruction of the world's forests is greatly contributing to the greenhouse effect. Deforestation is often a consequence of market distortions that hide the real economic value of forests and result in the inefficient...
The design and implementation of effective aid policy requires a deeper understanding of the impact of aid and the overall environment in which development aid operates. This policy brief addresses four areas which are key to understanding how aid works: the relationship between aid and economic...
Policy Brief
pdf
Many of the world’s poorest countries can be described as 'fragile states' wherein governments cannot or will not provide an environment for households to reduce, mitigate, or cope with poverty and other risks to wellbeing. Many of these states are in conflict or just emerging from conflict. The UNU...
Research Brief
Even the most optimistic analyses accept that many low-income countries (LICs) will remain low income for some time to come. Consequently, when assessing the policy options available to LICs it is important to take a long term view. In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Aid, Fiscal Policy, Climate Change, and...
Research Brief
pdf
Review shows that global agricultural production must be increased by about 70 per cent by 2050 in order to provide sufficient nourishment for the world’s growing population. Focusing on tropical climates to 2050, climate change is likely to reduce the rate of agricultural productivity growth. The...
Large food price fluctuations—caused primarily by extreme weather events, market disruptions, investor behaviour and government policy—began in the world market in 2007 and presented serious challenges for governments, private traders, farmers and consumers. A collaborative project between Cornell...
Research Brief
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Strong economic growth has not turned into poverty reduction in Mozambique due to stagnation in job creation. While the country sees great growth potential from natural resources, this industry is unlikely to generate many jobs as it is not labour-intensive. A fundamental challenge to job growth in...
Research Brief
A donor dilemma: aid effectiveness in fragile states. Donors are often faced with the dilemma that those countries most in need of aid are often those least likely to spend it effectively. This dilemma can be characterized as an instance of the Tingenberg rule which states that for policy objectives...
Displaying 32 of 76 results