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Publications (13)
This volume explores the various linkages between financial development, institutions, growth and poverty reduction in low-income and transition countries. It is the result of a two-year research project undertaken by UNU-WIDER, and the strong range of contributions present a significant variety of...
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– A Household Level Analysis
In this paper, using the rich household panel data of urban and rural Ethiopia that covers the period from 1994 to 2000, we attempted to establish the link between finance and poverty in Ethiopia. Our results show that access to finance is an important factor in consumption smoothing and hence...
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– What We Know and What We Need to Know
Drawing on recent literature, the paper argues that institutions and political economy factors hold the key to understanding why some countries have succeeded in developing their financial systems while others have not. The paper also reviews new evidence which suggests that institutional quality...
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– Some Short-Run Analytics
The present paper utilises a short-run theoretical macroeconomic model of a small open economy to look at the impact of macroeconomic policies and financial deepening upon poverty through sectoral changes. This is because an expansion in certain sectors may cause greater poverty reduction. The model...
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The paper primarily investigates the interrelationship between financial sector development and poverty reduction in Ghana. This is done using time-series data from the World Development Indicators from 1970-2001. The main findings are, first, that even though financial sector development does not...
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– The Mexican Agenda
Public policy aimed at building capacity among the extremely poor (support for food and nutrition; health; education and, more recently, financial services), combined with a stable macroeconomic environment, has proved to be successful for poverty alleviation in Mexico. Even though overall poverty...
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– the Origins and Consequences of Policy Incoherence Toward Informal Traders
Almost twenty years have passed since researchers from the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru showed how ‘bad laws’ impose disproportionate costs on those who choose formality. Although a multitude of conflicting regulations still precludes effective governance of informal trade in Lima...
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This paper investigates how people created, adapted and used social capital and conflict resolution during more than a decade of violent conflict in Liberia, and the potential of such capital to contribute to post-conflict peacebuilding and self-governance.
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– a Case Study for Urban Burkina Faso
Given the current focus of international development policy on pro-poor growth and poverty reduction, the role of the informal sector in the process of economic development is again at the top of the research and policy agenda. A key question is if pro-poor growth policies have to address the...
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The following essay has three parts. The first is a story about fluctuations in the balance of the relationship between impersonal and personal principles of social organization. This draws heavily on Max Weber’s interpretation of western history. The second part reviews the concept of an ‘informal...
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The ILO was founded for social justice, a mandate expressed today in terms of decent work as a global goal, for all who work, whether in formal or informal contexts. In June 2002, the delegates to the International Labour Conference from governments, workers’ and employers’ organizations adopted a...
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This paper argues that poverty originates in the structural injustices of a social order which incapacitates the poor from participating in the growth generating sectors of the economy and leaves them captives in the so called informal sector, characterized by low productivity and low earning...
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– Entering Mainstream Markets
This is a brief sketch of the Self Employed Women’s Association’s (SEWA) three-decade-long journey from the local to global and informal to formal sector in search of finding work and income for now 720,000 women workers. Though SEWA remains a local and an informal economy workers’ organization, its...
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