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Publications (29)
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.
– Do urban agglomeration economies matter?
The effects of a rural roads programme depend on labour mobility, how the programme is financed, and agglomera-tion economies. If financed by a rural poll tax and cross-price effects and agglomeration economies are sufficiently small, the wage will rise, with some return migration. Taxes on trade...
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This paper examines the relationship between poverty dynamics, causal pluralism, and mixed method research approaches. It reviews the nature and significance of the shift from the analysis of poverty status to poverty dynamics, discusses different approaches to causal reasoning and causal inference...
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– Benefits for town and country?
Do urban agglomeration economies enhance the social profitability of rural roads? When all goods are traded at parametric world prices, lower transport costs benefit villagers. Urban activities and welfare are unaffected if labour is immobile, but their levels fall when rural workers move freely to...
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This paper introduces the origins and scope of humanitarian economics, a vibrant field of study and practice that deals with the economics and political economy of war, disaster, and humanitarian action. To illustrate the field’s scientific and policy relevance, the paper draws on various examples...
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– Recent research advances and future agendas
We survey selected parts of the growing literature on the microeconomics of violent conflict, identifying where academic research has started to establish stylized facts and where methodological and knowledge gaps remain. We focus our review on the role of civilian agency in conflict; on wartime...
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– Which expected values are valid
This paper re-examines the validity of using expected values to evaluate the social profitability of public investments under uncertainty. Departing from the usual assumption of an aggregate good, the setting is a small open economy that faces stochastic world prices for tradable goods and...
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– A revival is long overdue
This paper makes the case for the systematic appraisal of public sector projects using shadow prices as the signals of social scarcities. In so doing, it attempts to redress the balance between estimating inputs and outputs, central though that task is, and valuing them correctly. The account of how...
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– LEAP model application
This study develops a scenario-based model to assess the current and future trends in energy demand in Africa and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Future energy demand is forecast on the basis of socio-economic variables such as gross domestic product, income per capita, population, and...
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– Patterns, causes and implications
During 1985–2015, globalization intensified the factor-endowment-related pattern of sectoral specialization. In skill-abundant developed countries, manufacturing became more skill-intensive. In land-scarce developing East Asia, labour-intensive manufacturing expanded, especially in China. In land...
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– Patterns, causes and implications
在1985-2015 年期间,全球化加深了与要素禀赋相关的部门专门化模式。在技术 力量充足的发达国家,制造业变得更为技术密集化。在土地稀缺的东亚发展中国家, 尤其是中国,劳动密集型的制造业得到扩张。在土地充足的发展中地区,制造业却陷 入停滞甚至衰退;然而,在土地稀缺的南亚地区,制造业的发展受到低识字率、薄弱 基础设施的拖累。在大多数国家,服务部门在产出和就业中所占的比重增加,但主要 原因却并非全球化。未来数十年部门结构的变化受到许多不确定性的影响,但大体趋 势会继续由各国土地存量和技术供给之间的差异来塑造。 Resources Statistical appendix.pdf Caselli...
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This paper develops a scenario-based model to identify and provide an array of electricity demand in Africa, and to derive them from the African power system of development. A system-based approach is performed by applying the scenario methodology developed by Schwartz in the context of the energy...
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NOTE | Revised version August 2017 available. View and download the revised version. Using comparable fiscal incidence analysis, this paper examines the impact of fiscal policy on inequality and poverty in 25 countries for around 2010. Success in fiscal redistribution is driven primarily by...
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High levels of inflexible bilateral trade in southern Africa have limited the participation in the competitive short-term markets, leading to inefficient use of energy infrastructure and blocking the Southern African Power Pool’s long-term goal of transitioning from a cooperative to competitive...
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– Proposed model for regional power sector integration in Africa
Regional power pools present a significant and potentially defining opportunity for African power systems to develop domestic energy resources, improve system reliability, and contribute to overall economic development. Hydropower is expected to play a significant role in many regional power pools...
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As the technology of climate-dependent energy sources is improving—both cheaper and more efficient—the energy sources are becoming more accessible for many of the nations in Africa. However, little is known about the underlying climate that would therefore be harvested by renewable technologies...
Blog
The storyline The basic storyline of this blog is economic growth since the Cold War. It is outlined how growth has produced two new middles. The first is middle-income countries, and the second is ‘middle people’ who live above the global poverty line—but not too far above. Thinking about...
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– Growth, precarity, structural change, and the limitations of the special case
This paper discusses the emergence of two new middles since the Cold War, namely middle-income countries and people living above absolute poverty but below a security-from poverty-line. The paper sets out what has happened. It is argued that although there has been substantial economic growth, only...
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– Preliminary study of the Inga 3 Dam
Large hydropower dams are at the centre of a debate weighing the value and costs of renewable energy against the risks of climate change. The debate is especially relevant on the African continent, which offers vast hydropower potential, but which is exposed to possible climatic changes. This paper...
This special section contains a series of five articles focused on energy and climate change in sub-Saharan Africa. It is well known that energy demand in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing rapidly and that many countries struggle to meet demand. Failure to meet energy demand reduces living standards...
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.
– Zambezi basin and South Africa
Part of Journal Special Issue
Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa
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.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Prospects for Renewable Energy in Africa
Working Paper
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The state has played a major role in the most important developmental successes. This paper discusses the advances in our understanding of the role of the state in the developmental process over the past thirty years, and the contribution to those advances played by changes in economics, changes in...
Blog
With COP21 currently taking place in Paris, the thoughts of UNU-WIDER Research Fellow Channing Arndt on the past and future of the climate change research and policy are particularly relevant. Our climate is changing - but how much? Over the last 30 years the existence of manmade climate change has...
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– A hybrid assessment
Projections of regional changes in surface air temperature and precipitation for the greater Nile River basin and northern Africa are presented. The probabilistic projections are obtained through a technique that combines projections of the MIT Integrated Global System Model with climate-change...
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This paper reviews the many areas in which economists play an important role in policy-making, including the quantification of objectives set by political processes, formulation of macroeconomic policy where economists have a dominating role, and also the formulation of sectoral policy where they...
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– A personal perspective
The policy advice given by economists in international institutions is influenced by their prior academic work. In my case, applied general equilibrium work resulted both in a belief in the necessity of decentralized markets and in a distrust of their ability to be stable. A career in international...
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– Past, present, and future
China is emerging as perhaps the most globally significant development finance provider, going far beyond concessional foreign aid. With China’s initiatives to create and foster new multi-lateral finance institutions, and to work in terms of large economic landscapes in Africa, Eurasia, and Latin...
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– Case Study: Zambezi Basin and South Africa
The present study develops a reliability assessment method of wind resource using optimum reservoir target power operations that maximizes the firm generation of integrated wind and hydro power. A combined water resources model for a system of reservoirs that implements a priority based linear...
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– Evaluating Carbon Taxes and Electricity Import Restrictions
We link a bottom-up energy sector model to a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model of South Africa in order to examine two of the country’s main energy policy considerations: (i) the introduction of a carbon tax and (ii) liberalization of import supply restrictions in order to...
Displaying 29 of 29 results