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Publications (19)
On the third day of the annual UNU-WIDER Conference on 8 September, RISE presented findings from three studies on COVID-19's impact on education systems. These studies underline the urgent need to remediate learning losses, but they also illustrate how systems can ‘build back better’. RISE’s panel...
It’s early July and I’m back in Maputo, Mozambique, looking over the calm sea at the boats that fish the waters for the seafood that makes visiting this part of Africa such a treat. The sunset here is a delicate combination of pale turquoise, light grey, and warm pink. Coming from the Finnish summer...
Few issues have been so contentious in recent years as international migration. The refugee crisis sparked not least by the Syrian war has shown that policies governing migration are in a tangle. To quote Jeffrey Sachs’ recent article (2016): ‘There is no international regime that establishes...
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...
What does it mean to be a fragile state? According to the IMF, fragile states are those in ‘which the government is unable to reliably deliver basic public services to the population – [they] face severe and entrenched obstacles to economic and human development.’ It is with this understanding that...
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...
Every single day, approximately 830 women die from causes related to childbirth. Despite considerable advances in maternal health over the last three decades (Hogan et al. 2010) as well as worldwide commitment to reducing maternal deaths, sufficient reductions have not been achieved. These deaths...
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...
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 paper measures trends in global interpersonal inequality during 1975–2010 using data from the most recent version of the World Income Inequality Database (WIID). The picture that emerges using ‘absolute,’ and even ‘centrist’ measures of inequality, is very different from the results obtained...
The World Bank recently estimated that two-thirds of all jobs in developing countries are at risk of automation. This shocking statistic raises an important question: ‘What can policy makers do to prepare for this tech revolution?’ From 11-13 September UNU-WIDER hosted our 2019 WIDER Development...
Blog
In my last blog I wrote about the common factors at play in political and economic transitions. Using the case of South Sudan, I demonstrated how these factors laid the groundwork for a fragility trap. In this post, I explain what this means. Trap begins with missed opportunities for reforms In the...
In our previous blog, we looked at some of the key facts about international migration and identified a few areas that, from an economist’s perspective, need attention. However, the question still stands: how should the international community respond to migration and refugees? There are no perfect...
Crisis can mean different things to different people. In response to this week's WIDER conference, we must ask ‘Which crises, and crises for whom?’. The crises with the biggest impact may be long-term rather than short-lived. A good analytical approach, I believe, is to prioritize both the...
Although sometimes over used, the word 'crisis' accurately describes many challenges of today's world, such as climage change, war and refugees, economic volatility, pandemics, and the continuing unmet needs of the poor, hungry, and neglected. While much has been achieved — in reducing the incidence...
Working Paper
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– On the significance of developing countries
This paper outlines the contours of global economic development, since 1980, to analyse underlying factors and consider future implications. The increased economic significance of developing countries, reflected in their share of world output, manufacturing and trade, is striking. But development...
Working Paper
pdf
– The political economy of compliance
This paper explores the link between trust in government, policy-making, and compliance. It focuses on a specific channel whereby citizens who are convinced that a policy is worthwhile are more motivated to comply with it. This in turn reduces the government’s cost of implementing a policy and may...
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