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Publications (23)
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
The study analyses trends in global income distribution since 1950 using a new companion WIID dataset with standardized country income percentiles. It investigate the robustness of these trends with respect to key data choices, as well as the degree to which the inequality trend depends on specific...
Journal Article
– Insights from survey and tax administrative data in Zambia
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This study examines how formal firms have been impacted by and recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic, by drawing on two distinct but complementary data sources. This is the first attempt to use both survey and tax administrative data to measure the impact of the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– High poverty and low trust
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, sub-Saharan African countries faced the dilemma of how to minimize viral transmission without adversely affecting the poor. This study proposes an index of lockdown readiness, taking into account housing conditions and income security, and analyses how this...
– Research evidence for transforming economies, states, and societies
As we cross the mid-point of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UNU-WIDER culminates a 5-year research programme on Transforming economies, states, and societies. The synthesis of the most salient research contributions made is organized in this report by three universal aspirations...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Exploring a puzzling relationship in the early stages of the pandemic
During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was wealthier countries with stronger institutions that suffered the highest numbers of cases and fatalities. Many weaker countries were instead praised for more effective pandemic response. What explains this seeming puzzle? We re-consider these...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Livelihoods and wellbeing in India during COVID-19
THIS ARTICLE IS ON EARLY VIEW | This article studies the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gendered dimensions of employment and mental health among urban informal-sector workers in Delhi, India. First, the study finds that men’s employment declined by 84 percentage points during the pandemic...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Ghana
In this study, we provide causal evidence of the immediate and near-term impact of stringent COVID-19 lockdown policies on employment outcomes, using Ghana as a case study. We take advantage of a specific policy setting, in which strict stay-at-home orders were issued and enforced in two spatially...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A view from below
This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related policy measures on livelihoods in urban South Africa. Using qualitative research methods, we analyse two rounds of semi-structured phone interviews, conducted between June and September 2020 in the township of Khayelitsha, Cape...
Journal Article
– Industrial aspirations and reverse labour migration
The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated processes of labour transition from industrial work to the informal economy, which have always characterized the life of the working poor. This study explores this kind of reverse transition, that is, when the Lewisian dream of having an industrial job comes to an...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Ecuador
By combining household survey data before and during the COVID-19 pandemic with detailed tax-benefit simulations, this paper quantifies the distributional effects of COVID-19 in Ecuador and the role of tax-benefit policies in mitigating the immediate impact of the economic shocks. Our results show a...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
This study assesses the impact of COVID-19 on household consumption poverty. To predict changes in income and the associated effects on poverty, we rely on existing estimated macroeconomic impacts. We assume two main impact channels: direct income/wage and employment losses. Our simulations suggest...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A social accounting matrix approach
This study assesses the economic costs of COVID-19 and the state of emergency implemented by the Government of Mozambique. We use a social accounting matrix multiplier analysis to estimate the effects of the pandemic on the economy. Our simulations suggest that the Mozambican economy lost 3.6...
The year 2021 marked the mid-point of UNU-WIDER’s 2019-2023 work programme addressing the three challenges of transforming economies, states, and societies. The COVID-19 pandemic meant that UNU-WIDER, along with most of the world, had to drastically change its ways of working. However, the Institute...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A political economy of overoptimism
The contribution of this study is to question the ‘official’ estimates of global monetary poverty up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We argue there is a political economy of overoptimism in the measurement of global poverty. Specifically, we show that the methodological and presentational...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Insights from the Hrishipara diaries
We examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the livelihoods of the poor in a semi-rural setting in Bangladesh. We use an unusually rich dataset which tracks the economic and financial transactions of sixty poor and very poor individuals and their families on a daily real-time basis for 12...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
This study explores the impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa on income poverty and inequality in South Africa. Using a static tax-benefit microsimulation model with input datasets that were adjusted to reflect people’s earned incomes just before the pandemic (March 2020)...
Displaying 16 of 23 results