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.

Entrepreneurship and Regional Economic Growth: Towards A General Theory of Start-Ups

Abstract: Start-ups of new firms are important for economic growth. However, start-up rates differ significantly between countries and within regions of the same country. A large empirical literature studies the reasons for this and attempts to identify the regional determinants of start-ups. In contrast, there is a much smaller theoretical literature that attempts the formal modelling of the start-up process within a region. In this paper, we attempt to contribute to this small literature by introducing a general theoretical model of the entrepreneurial start-up process. The model links start-ups to economic growth and can be applied to understand growth in a regional context. We derive five propositions that fit the stylized facts from the empirical literature: (i) growth in the regional economy is driven by an expansion in the number of start-up firms that supply intermediate goods and services; (ii) improvements in human capital will enhance the rate of start-ups; (iii) improvements in the relative rates of return to entrepreneurs and business conditions will raise start-up rates; (iv) an increase in regional financial concentration will reduce the start-up rate in a region and; (v) increased agglomeration/urbanization in a region has an a priori ambiguous effect on start-up rates.

Poverty Alleviation and Tax Policy

Abstract: This paper examines public good provision and tax policy — optimal non-linear income taxation and linear commodity taxation — when the government departs from purely welfarist objective function and seeks to minimise poverty. This assumption reflects much policy discussion and may help understand some divergences of practical tax policy from lessons in optimal tax analysis. In contrast to Atkinson and Stiglitz (J. Public Econom. 6 (1976) 55), it may be optimal to use differentiated commodity tax rates, including the taxation of savings, even if preferences are separable in goods and leisure. The optimal effective marginal tax rate at the bottom of the distribution may be negative, suggesting that wage subsidy schemes can be optimal. Finally, optimal provision of a public good is analysed under poverty minimisation.

Female autonomy and women's welfare: An introduction

Abstract: Gender equality and female empowerment are important goals in themselves. They are also potential means to achieving desirable outcomes in domains related to fertility, child health, education, and poverty alleviation (e.g., Duflo, 2003; Lundberg, Pollak, & Wales, 1997; World Bank, 2012). This has led to women's empowerment being a key policy goal in recent decades, especially since the adoption of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women in 1979. In 2015, gender equality was listed as Goal 5 in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. There is as well a consensus that outcomes for women have improved considerably during recent decades especially in terms of educational attainment, fertility, life expectancy, and labor force participation (Heath & Jayachandran, 2018). However, significant gender gaps remain, and women fall behind in the labor market, continue to be underrepresented in the political arena, have weaker legal rights, and face overt discrimination (Duflo, 2012; World Bank, 2012). Further, these gender gaps and gender‐biased attitudes are more prevalent in low‐income countries. A sizable disadvantage and discrimination that women and girls face arises within their households. In fact, this inequality faced by girls within their households from an early age contributes to worse later‐life outcomes for them. Evidence from India and China points towards a preference for sons leading to skewed sex ratios and “missing women,” lower spending on daughters, practices related to dowry, and a general lack of decision‐making power in the hands of women (Anderson, 2007; Jayachandran, 2015). Female genital mutilation practised in parts of Africa and the Middle East has affected at least 200 million young girls (UNICEF, 2016). Across most developing countries, property and inheritance rights are stacked in favor of males (Hallward‐Driemeier, Hasan, & Bogdana Rusu, 2013) and women are frequent targets of domestic violence. Acknowledging the potential gains that could accrue from increased female autonomy, we need a better understanding of how changes in local contexts and environments alter women's autonomy, welfare, and decision‐making. While we know from existing literature that improved labor market

Property Rights, Growth, and Conflict

Abstract: Whose property rights are secure and insecure matters fundamentally for the political and economic implications of expropriation risk. Using a new set of indicators that measure the property insecurity of ethno-cultural minority groups, this article demonstrates that property insecurity of ethno-cultural minorities does not reduce long-run growth; that the severity of property insecurity for the worst-off group in a country is strongly related to the onset of armed conflict; and, controlling for civil war, property insecurity for ethno-cultural minorities is actually associated with higher growth rates. Economic growth can occur when the property rights of elites are secure but marginalized minorities face high a risk of expropriation, as land may be reallocated into the hands of investors with skills and access to capital. However, the potentially growth enhancing effect of forced displacement and resettlement is reduced because the property insecurity of minorities also increases the likelihood of armed conflict.