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.

Real Wages, Employment And Macroeconomic Policy in a Structuralist Model for South Africa

Abstract: It is now commonplace to argue that in South Africa, like many developing countries, higher wages will lower employment. This paper shows that it is difficult to extricate the relationship between wages, employment and output from the macropolicy environment. Dynamic computable general equilibrium simulations show that the employment effects of nominal wage increases depends on induced monetary and fiscal policy when there is monetary 'policy dominance'. While wage-led growth is inefficient, increasing the wages of unskilled workers can improve the distribution of income, when the induced changes are neutralised.

Inequality by Population Groups and Income Sources: Accounting for Inequality Changes in Spain During the Recession

Abstract: I discuss a new approach which decomposes inequality into the contributions of population groups by income sources. I estimate a matrix with rows and columns which indicate different population groups and income sources, respectively, with each element indicating the marginal change in the inequality contribution of a group (as measured by the Recentered Influence Function) when an income source is added and with all contributions adding up to overall inequality. The approach can be used to analyze the contributions of groups and sources to the trend in inequality over time (or between distributions), disentangling the effect of changes in the composition of the population by groups and changes in their income distribution by sources. An empirical application characterizes the distributional change in Spain following the Great Recession, highlighting the disequalizing role of the massive increase in unemployment or the equalizing effect of social protection through different population groups.

Fiscal Policy, State Building and Economic Development

Abstract: This paper presents a synopsis of the contextual conditions, factors and challenges under which the recent evolution of tax systems has taken place over the past three decades. The paper gives especial emphasis to the role of natural endowments, political economy, social structure and history, and the interplay between politics and tax revenues. These are relevant issues, considering that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and now the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have placed fiscal policy, and tax policy and revenue mobilization in particular, at the centre of national and international development efforts. Delivering on the SDGs will require a level of state revenue mobilization capacity in many ways unprecedented in the history of development policy.

Transnational terrorism as a spillover of domestic disputes in other countries

Abstract: This paper models transnational terrorism as a three-way strategic interaction involving a government that faces armed opposition at home, which may spill over in the form of acts of terrorism by the state's opponents against the government's external sponsor. The external sponsor also utilizes deterrence against potential terrorists, which only lowers terrorism if terrorists are not intrinsically motivated by a deep-seated sense of humiliation. A rise in the external power's preference for deterrence against terrorism may backfire in these circumstances.