Filter by...
Reset all
Publications (11)
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Mozambique
The political consequences of economic inequality have been debated in academic and policy circles for centuries. The nature of this relationship seems highly dependent on specific contexts, with empirical studies showing mixed evidence on how economic inequality affects voting and other forms of...
Working Paper
pdf
Following the abolition of slavery, various forms of compulsory labour were adopted by colonial powers to develop their economies. This paper analyses the contemporary consequences of compulsory cotton production—a forced labour system that operated in colonial Mozambique from 1926 to 1961. During...
Working Paper
pdf
– Explaining elite political alignments in a deeply divided society
The role of ethnicity in political behaviour remains unsettled theoretically. Instrumentalist theories emphasize cognitive processes, arguing that political actors strategically employ ethnicity to attain certain goals, while expressivist theories highlight affectual forces, arguing that actors are...
Working Paper
pdf
– Trade liberalization and the rise of populism in Brazil
This paper investigates the long-term impact of economic shocks on populism, by exploiting a natural experiment created by the trade liberalization process implemented in Brazil between 1990 and 1995. This high impact and low duration event generated a profound shock to the economy with, we argue...
Continued lockdown measures are straining the social contract between citizens and governments. As this column explains, in contexts where there are low levels of trust in the state as well as high economic inequality – including some countries in sub-Saharan Africa – this could lead to growing...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper explores the relationship between household exposure to riots and social capital in urban India using a panel dataset collected by the authors in the state of Maharashtra. The analysis applies a random-effect model with lagged covariates to estimate the exogenous effect of riots on social...
Working Paper
pdf
– Civic engagement in Colombia
This paper investigates the impact of inequality on individual civic engagement at the community level, whether this impact persists over time, and what mechanisms may shape the relationship between inequality and civic engagement. The results show that inequality in Colombia is associated with...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper examines the changing nature of occupational labour-market trends in South Africa and the resulting impact on wages. We observe high levels of demand for skilled labour that have intensified a trend already established before 1994. Over the period 2001-12 employment within the primary...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper investigates inequalities across the major black ethnic groups in South Africa, accounting for 80 per cent of the country’s population. We demonstrate that there is an important ethnic gap in the poverty levels of the Xhosa and the Zulu with respect to the Sotho/Tswana. We also show that...
Blog
24 September 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén At the recent UNU-WIDER conference here in Helsinki on inclusive growth in Africa, the quality of national accounts was hotly debated. Part of the conference was focused on innovative methods, theories and empirical approaches to measuring poverty, inequality and...
Blog
24 September 2013 Roger Williamson Another big weekend for UNU-WIDER. The stage was well set on Thursday 19 September for a consideration of inequality and poverty in Africa, at the 17th WIDER Annual Lecture by former Finnish President Ahtisaari on 'Egalitarian Principles–the foundation for stable...
Displaying 11 of 11 results