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Publications (639)
Working Paper
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The ‘affordability’ of new or expanded social protection programmes depends on more than an assessment of the fiscal costs or the poverty-reducing or developmental benefits. Diverse international organizations have shown that programmes costing less than or about 1 per cent of GDP have substantial...
Working Paper
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The promotion of human welfare is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges of economic development. To achieve this, many developing countries adopted trade liberalisation in the late 1980s, premised on the theoretical evidence based on the definitive Heckscher-Ohlin theory which predicts gains...
Working Paper
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This paper makes the case that current social contracts are often inadequate, irrelevant, or unjust for informal workers. It outlines three possible future scenarios: the bad old contract, an even worse contract, and a better new contract. Under the bad old contract, informal workers lacked legal...
Working Paper
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– Individual impacts of the Employment Tax Incentive
This paper uses survey and tax administrative data to analyse the effects of a sizeable employer-borne payroll tax credit for young, low-wage workers in South Africa. We find limited impact of the wage subsidy on employment of young, low-wage workers relative to two comparison groups: slightly older...
Working Paper
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This paper presents a brief history of social services provision in Nigeria with special reference to education. It argues that the problems of implementation of social policies are due to state monopolies; the negative effects of structural adjustment conditionalities; central government...
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.
– Simulating Universal Pensions in Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania and South Africa
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Working Paper
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– Simulating universal pensions in Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa
We use four novel, cross-country comparable tax-benefit microsimulation models for Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa to evaluate ex ante the expansion of a universal old-age pension in a static setting. Universal pensions would significantly reduce poverty and inequality in settings in...
– 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...
This book provides cutting edge analytical insights into if and how the MDGs are likely to be achieved. The volume presents empirical analyses of key determinants of the MDG target variables, which recognise that most of the MDG targets are endogenously related. These inter-dependencies are crucial...
Working Paper
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– An examination of the alleviating impact of tax and benefit measures
This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related tax-benefit measures in Viet Nam. The focus is on the initial phase of the crisis in 2020. The study delves into how the pandemic affected disposable incomes, examining the differences across the income distribution and impacts...
Working Paper
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– An investigation of India’s employment guarantee programme
Administrative failures in anti-poverty programmes are widespread in developing countries.We focus on one such administrative failure—the persistent delay in paying beneficiaries on time in India’s iconic anti-poverty programme, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Using a life cycle...
Working Paper
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In Peru, a country with an astonishing variety of different ecological areas, with 84 different climate zones and landscapes, with rainforests, high mountain ranges and dry deserts, the geographical context may not be all that matters, but it could be very significant in explaining regional...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Spatial Inequality and Development
Working Paper
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– Drivers, Lessons and Shifts in the Engagement of the Brazilian Ministry of Social Development
The Brazilian Ministry of Social Development’s co-operation with sub-Saharan Africa has shifted from an initial engagement in cash transfers to a recent engagement in food and nutritional security. This paper aims at understanding the main drivers for such shift considering lessons drawn from first...
Displaying 16 of 639 results