This paper employs data from 103 developing countries between 1981 and 2012 to examine the determinants of private savings in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with a focus on the effect of financial liberalization on private savings. It also analyses why the savings rate for SSA countries is lower than...

This paper considers the effect of financial liberalisation on access to investment finance using firm level data covering 57 developing and transition countries. An index is presented which measures financial market liberalisation along the following policy dimensions: directed lending, credit...

The current context of the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the most vulnerable socio-economic groups to greater financial risk and thus could lead to exacerbating income inequality. The crisis creates an opportunity to demand further structural and systemic reforms for redistributive justice. Our...

According to a standard economic theory, capital should flow from rich capital-abundant countries to poor capital-scarce countries. However, a reverse pattern has prevailed in the world economy. This is the so-called Lucas paradox. In addition, it has been shown that counterintuitively there is...

How do shifts in trade affect social protections for the poor? Although the fraction of the world's population considered the 'extreme' poor has fallen by over one-half over the past quarter century, many of those lifted above the global poverty line remain vulnerable to shocks that could place...

This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture. From the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals and will continue under the Sustainable...

China has undergone remarkable economic growth spearheaded by industrialization. Chinese industry demands a wide variety of raw materials in increasing amounts in order to manufacture all kinds of products. Industrial demand exceeds domestic supply for several materials. Thus, China needs to...

The majority of the world's poor, by income poverty and multi-dimensional poverty, now live in countries officially classified by the World Bank as middle-income countries. Of course nothing happens when a country crosses a (somewhat) arbitrary threshold in per capita income but it does matter...

We introduce two separate datasets - the Global Consumption Dataset and the Global Income Dataset - containing an unprecedented portrait of consumption and income of persons over time, within and across countries, around the world. The benchmark version of the dataset presents estimates in...