Filter by...
Reset all
Publications (22)
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.
– A counter-argument to the recommendation in the Mirrlees Review
The Mirrlees Review recommends that commodity taxation should in general be uniform, but with some goods consumed in conjunction with labour supply (such as child care) left untaxed. This article examines the validity of this claim in an optimal income tax framework. Contrary to the recommendation...
– An Empirical Analysis
The theoretical analysis of optimal commodity taxation is advanced, but there is only limited empirical evidence to guide commodity tax policies. With this paper, we contribute to this body of literature by empirically examining, using Finnish consumption data, the relation between working hours...
Working Paper
pdf
– The Missing Evidence from Luminosity Data
The effects of social transfers on growth are still unclear. The limitations of aggregated data at sub-national levels have confined the analysis to the use of simulation models and household surveys. As an alternative, this paper contributes to the empirical literature by assessing the effects of...
Working Paper
pdf
– Contextual Differences in the Returns to Bolsa Familia in Brazil
Local institutional and structural (meso) factors can play a role in mediating the returns to a macro-social policy. I focus on the Brazilian cash-transfer-programme Bolsa Familia and check how contextual features influence the returns to transfers. Building on Amartya Sen’s work, I assess the...
Working Paper
pdf
– State Health Insurance Scheme of Andhra Pradesh, India
The objectives of the study are three-fold: to investigate who are vulnerable to welfare loss from health shocks, what are the household responses to cope with the economic burden of health shocks and if policy responses like state health insurance schemes are effective in reducing the economic...
Blog
– Can Microcredit Close the Deal?
M.G. Quibria In the wake of the worst famine of Bangladesh of the post-World War era Professor Muhammad Yunus launched a microcredit experiment in 1976 to assist a group of poor, highly indebted households, in Chittagong, Bangladesh. This experiment, which was to later emerge as the Grameen Bank...
Working Paper
pdf
– Can Microcredit Close the Deal?
This paper explores the relationship between microcredit and poverty reduction. To investigate this question, we posit a bare-bone, household model that outlines the economic environment within which various types of family microenterprises operate. It highlights a number of issues that impinge on...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper considers the effect of financial liberalisation on access to investment finance using firm level data covering 57 developing and transition countries. An index is presented which measures financial market liberalisation along the following policy dimensions: directed lending, credit...
Journal Article
In the light of the current global financial and economic crises, how would governments in sub-Saharan Africa allocate their budgets across sectors in response to a binding debt-servicing constraint? Within a framework of public-expenditure choice, the present paper estimates constraint-consistent...
Policy Brief
pdf
Africa is the developing region most at risk from the global economic crisis. Its recent strong growth has been interrupted. Already home to the largest number of low-income countries in the world, the region is now likely to experience higher unemployment and poverty; increases in infant mortality...
Policy Brief
pdf
– Is a New Paradigm for Recovery in Developing Countries Emerging?
One year into the global economic crisis, it has become clear that the paradigm for international development has changed irrevocably. With leadership, moral authority and the capacity of the West in international development diminishing, developing countries’ recovery and future growth will...
Working Paper
pdf
– Lessons from the 2008 Food Crisis
The 2008 episode of food price explosion, political turmoil, and human suffering revealed important flaws in the current global food architecture. This paper argues that to safeguard the strengths of the current system, four failures in market functioning and policymaking must be addressed. First...
Blog
Luc Christiaensen Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER At the G8 July summit in Aquila, Italy, US$ 20 billion was pledged to support farmers in poorer countries. Is the world getting serious about food security? To be sure, while growing water shortages and climate change pose important challenges...
Working Paper
pdf
Following the financial crisis that broke in the US and other Western economies in late 2008, there is now serious concern about its impact on the developing countries. The world media almost daily reports scenarios of gloom and doom, with many predicting a deep global recession. This paper...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from African Economies
The paper explores the impact of a binding external debt-servicing constraint on the sectoral composition of government expenditures in the economies of Africa, where this constraint has traditionally been most prevalent. Applying seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) to 1975-94 five-year panel data...
Working Paper
pdf
– A Review and Commentary
This paper is a review and commentary, from both ethical and informational perspectives, of some known results in optimal anti-poverty budgetary rules for two kinds of intervention, direct income transfers and wage employment programmes.
Displaying 16 of 22 results