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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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– 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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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...
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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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...
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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...
– Is the Market Destroying Cooperation?
This text focuses on group behaviour in developing countries. It includes studies of producer and community organizations, NGOs and some public sector groups. Some groups function well, from the perspectives of equity, efficiency and well-being, while others do not. This book explores why, examining...
– Is the Market Destroying Cooperation?
This text focuses on group behaviour in developing countries. It includes studies of producer and community organizations, NGOs and some public sector groups. Some groups function well, from the perspectives of equity, efficiency and well-being, while others do not. This book explores why, examining...
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– Political Activism, Community Identity and Group Behaviour
This paper explores the nature of collective action and group behaviour through a case study of a highly successful political organization of poorer sex workers in Calcutta. The paper asks: What stimulated the participation of sex workers in their organization, promoted individual commitment to the...
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The paper deals with evaluating the adequacy of the assumption that in economic transactions people are self-interested insofar as they are motivated solely by the concern of maximizing their own utility, and in particular with assessing how this assumption affects within-group behaviour. Policy and...
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– Collective Action and the Market in Colombian Development
This paper considers the role and modus operandi of the National Coffee Federation of Colombia. Much respected and much criticized over time, today its role is being challenged as inappropriate to the new commitment to a free market economy. The paper evaluates the historical role of the federation...
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This paper focuses on the networks of business-related contacts that are built and maintained by manufacturing entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa. It describes the various functions that such networks perform, explaining why each function is important that given the environment in which the...
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– A Gender Analysis and Conceptual Framework
This paper examines group functioning in the management of common pool resources, such as forests. In recent years community forestry groups have mushroomed in South Asia. But how participative, equitable and efficient are they? Many have done well in the short run in terms of regenerating...
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– Leaders and Intermediaries in Producers’ Associations
The development literature considers associations an important economic development tool that allows producers to pursue their economic welfare collectively and through participatory means. This paper comparatively analyses the experience of three associations of agricultural producers in the...
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A very large amount of activity occurs within groups (that is within families, firms, co-operatives, conununities or governments). Yet most economic analysis focuses on market transactions between these agents. The purpose of the study is to analyse within group behaviour. Evidence suggests some...
Displaying 25 of 25 results