Bücher der Reihe WIDER Studies in Development Economics

This book advocates a new approach to the relief of famine and hardship in developing countries by addressing the political issues that prevent fair distribution of resources, rather than by simply seeking to provide more food and services.

As their Millennium Development Goals, world leaders have pledged by 2015 to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger, to achieve universal primary education, to reduce child mortality, to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to halve the number of people without safe drinking water. Achieving these goals requires a large increase in the flow of financial resources to developing countries - double the present development assistance from abroad.Examining innovative ways to secure these resources, this book sets out a framework for the economic analysis of different sources of funding, applying the tools of modern public economics to identify the key issues. It examines the role of new sources of overseas aid, considers the fiscal architecture and the lessons that can be learned from federal fiscal systems, asks how far increased transfers impose a burden on donors, and investigates how far one can separate raising resources from their use.In turn, the book examines global environmental taxes (such as a carbon tax) the taxation of currency transactions (the Tobin tax), a development-focused allocation of Special Drawing Rights by the IMF, the UK Government proposal for an International Finance Facility, increased private donations for development purposes, a global lottery (or premium bond), and increased remittances by emigrants. In each case, it considers the feasibility of the proposal and the resources that it can realistically raise. In each case, it offers new perspectives and insights into these new and controversial proposals.

This volume brings together a significant new collection of studies on formality and informality in developing countries. Containing contributions from some of the very best analysts in development studies, the volume is multidisciplinary in nature, with contributions from anthropologists, economists, sociologists, and political scientists.

This study seeks to understand the rise and fall of the "golden age" of monetarist capitalism enjoyed by Western countries from the end of World War II until the 1960s. Blending historical analysis with economic theory, it questions the basis of present policy-making and provides policy proposals.

This work is an introduction to the study of group behaviour in developing countries. It provides both relevant theoretical issues and 11 case studies. The authors explore what determines modes of behaviour of groups, and the consequences for efficiency, equity, and well-being.

This acute examination of the quality of women's life addresses a variety of particularly urgent questions. It develops a universal account of women's quality of life and in doing so confronts issues of cultural relativism. An account of gender justice and women's equality is proposed in various areas in which quality of life is measured.

Contributors provide a set of authoritative studies of emerging development issues. This text addresses both analytic and empirical issues on the role of environmental resources in the development process, presenting explanations of existing situations and policies for the future.

This is a collection of papers examining the issue of increasing inequality in the distribution of income in developing countries. Growth, Inequality and Poverty comprises many of the most important contributions to the debate.

This graduate text provides a review of the major approaches employed for estimating poverty lines and how poverty is estimated in practice.

Addressing issues of defining and measuring the quality of life, this title examines developments in the philosophical definition of well-being and links them to practical issues such as the delivery of health care and the assessment of women's quality of life.

Since the 1960s the resource-poor countries have grown faster than the resource-rich ones. This reflects differences in the speed of industrialization and the nature of the political state. This book shows how policies for economic recovery must be adapted to reflect differences in the natural resource base and type of political state.

Based on a review of relevant literature and an econometric analysis of inequality indexes, this volume provides a systematic analysis of the changes in within-country income inequality. It offers an empirical assessment of the relation between policies towards liberalization and globalization and income inequality.