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Publications (94)
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.
This study examines the trajectory of global income inequality since 1981. Commonly used (relative) definitions indicate a decline in global inequality since the late 1980s. Looking ahead, it has been intuited that the influence of China's economic development — and that of other rapidly growing...
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.
The study analyses trends in global income distribution since 1950 using a new companion WIID dataset with standardized country income percentiles. It investigate the robustness of these trends with respect to key data choices, as well as the degree to which the inequality trend depends on specific...
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.
– Resource rents, fiscal capacity and political institutions in developing economies
While it is recognised that the ability of states to raise revenues (i.e., fiscal capacity) is important for the provision of key public goods in less developed economies, it is less clear what its determinants are and what explains cross-country differences. We focus on the impact of natural...
Pursuing the global development agenda will require genuine commitment from political leaders and significant stepping-up of government efforts. But, above all, it will require increased financial resources. Where will these resources come from?We are at the mid-point of the 2030 Agenda for...
Parts of Uganda that had centralised political systems before colonial rule are more likely to have higher rates of voluntary tax compliance. Merima Ali and Odd-Helge Fjeldstad look at why that might be the case.Voluntary tax compliance is an important source for domestic revenue in Africa as the...
Working Paper
pdf
– Temporary bandages to permanent wounds?
This paper provides a contextual analysis of the adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador. First, we outline the historical context and the political situation of the period 2019–24 that serve as context for the passage and implementation of the Bitcoin law (Decree No. 57). We identify the...
Working Paper
pdf
Taxation can contribute to state-building through a tax bargain in which taxpayers are willing to increase compliance in return for improved government accountability. There is limited evidence for this in sub-Saharan Africa where it is argued that the fiscal state is weak, with low tax revenues and...
There has been a revival of interest in the state’s role in economic development. Recent research argues that the most successful economies are those where effective states provide crucial public goods and services. The historical emergence of effective tax systems and the related processes by which...
The post-COVID-19 economic recovery and Russia’s war with Ukraine have caused some natural resource prices to reach new highs. Although forecasting the price of internationally-traded commodities is notoriously difficult, recent estimates suggest that prices will remain high through 2024. The high...
Working Paper
pdf
– The contribution of the UNU-WIDER World Income Inequality Database initiative
Globally, there are several initiatives being undertaken to ensure the availability of information across countries that can be used to analyse the inequality phenomenon in and among countries. The data are easily accessible for use in comparative research on inequality across regions and countries...
Working Paper
pdf
– ACEIR research and the WIID
Work done by the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research (ACEIR) has documented the many-faceted nature of inequality in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. Conventionally measured inequality ranges from moderate (in Ghana) to extremely high (in South Africa). Trying to tell one coherent...
Working Paper
pdf
– Ghana case study
Over the years, money-metric measures of inequality such as the Gini coefficient and the Palma Ratio, as frequently used in Ghana, have become useful in providing quantitative measures of welfare distribution that enable a better understanding of the extent and nature of inequality. From these...
Working Paper
pdf
A substantial amount of research has been conducted examining inequality in South Africa using multiple data sources. We provide an overview of this research in this paper. Furthermore, we use nationally representative survey data to estimate income and consumption inequality in South Africa between...
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
Fiscal state capacity
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.
– Formalization of individual property rights on land and taxation in sub-Saharan Africa
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
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.
– On the role of legibility in tax state development
Part of Journal Special Issue
Fiscal state capacity
Displaying 16 of 94 results