World Institute for Development Economics Research

About: World Institute for Development Economics Research is a facility organization based out in Helsinki, Finland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Poverty & Population. The organization has 110 authors who have published 525 publications receiving 17316 citations.

Aid, Political Business Cycles and Growth in Africa

Abstract: This paper develops a model of opportunistic behaviour in which an incumbent government resort to expansionary fiscal and/or monetary stimuli to foster economic growth and thus, maximize the probability of re-election. Using a panel dataset of 51 African countries covering the period 1980 to 2012, we test first, whether aid and institutional quality factors have an effect on growth. We find evidence to support the most recent studies showing that aid has a positive impact on growth. We however, do not find evidence to support the proposition that institutional quality is a sine qua non conditional for aid to achieve impact on growth. Second, we test whether donor aid facilitates political business cycles, and investigates their effect on growth. We find evidence that donors, through guaranteeing support to incumbent governments, unwittingly do instigate political business cycles. Forbearance, and sometimes complicity by donors, aid seems to allow incumbent governments to instigate macroeconomic stimuli that ensure electoral victory with no fear of losing aid.

Job Quality in High-Touch Services

Abstract: Abstract While much has been written about the low wages and benefits in high-touch services, less has been focused on how workplace practices such as schedule control, leave options and workplace inflexibility impacts economic security opportunities. This is an issue particularly important to women, as they bear a disproportionate amount of the caring labour—childcare, elder care, and other care work—in families and communities. The lack of access to flexible work options for low-wage workers is symptomatic of the inherent segmentation of the US labour market. Low-wage jobs are characterized by highly structured work environments such as in retail, hospitality, restaurant, and tourism industries. These jobs include the semi-skilled service trades where employers see low-wage workers as more ‘easily replaceable’ than their higher paid counterparts. As women and people of colour have higher rates of employment in these jobs, this situation reinforces gender and racial inequality with regard to the availability of flexible work options. Using a case study of restaurant workers and focusing on workplace practices, the chapter highlights the challenges that high-touch workers face, along with the connections between workplace flexibility and economic security. This case is then used to inform both the workplace practices and public policies that can help address workplace flexibility for the larger, low-wage labour market, especially in high-touch services.

Wartime governance and state-building trajectories in post-conflict societies

Abstract: To date, there is limited understanding about the consequences of wartime dynamics for post-war state-building processes. This paper explores one such dynamics—the forms of governance exercised by armed groups during wartime—and proposes a theoretical framework outlining how forms of wartime governance affect trajectories of state-building in the aftermath of civil wars. Six possible trajectories are mapped out: stable democracy, weak democracy, stable autocracy, fragmented rule, contested autocracy, and durable disorder. Each trajectory is shaped by the interaction between two dimensions of wartime governance: how armed groups build institutional capacity in wartime and the characteristics of wartime civilian rule by armed groups. The core argument is that civil wars generate within themselves bureaucratic and institutional capacity—through how armed groups govern territories and civilians within them—that under certain circumstances may be harnessed in the post-war period to build states capable of governing. The characteristics and durability of those forms of wartime governance shape the type of state-building and political regime trajectories that emerge in the post-war period.

Brazil’s south–north labour income gap re-examined: evidence across purchasing power adjusted wage distributions

Abstract: This article provides new evidence for the sources of regional income inequalities in Brazil throughout the wage distribution, taking into account the regional differentials in purchasing power. We...