The Doha Round and Kenya: Good and Not So Good Lessons

The global financial crisis and spiking unemployment figures have raised the threat of escalating barriers to trade. An early conclusion to the Doha Round might help avert some of the increase in protectionism, but no one knows by how much. And while Doha will help the world economy, it will also create winners and losers across countries and across sectors within countries (Polaski, 2006). How much developing countries can win or lose depends, to a large extent, on how the issue of agricultural subsidies in developed countries is resolved. But it also depends on the definition of sensitive commodities and the effects of further liberalising trade in manufacturing goods. Developing countries will have to look very carefully at the gains and losses from proposed Doha Round agreements, the so-called ?modalities?. For many developing countries, the nature of any agreed package will be more important than reaching any agreement by a specific deadline.The Doha Round and Kenya: Good and Not So Good Lessons

Pro-poor growth: what is it?

Poverty, pro-poor

Latin America?s Progress on Gender Equality: Poor Women Workers Are Still Left Behind

Latin America?s Progress on Gender Equality: Poor Women Workers Are Still Left Behind

Do CCTs Reduce Poverty?

.Poverty, CCT, Cash Transfers

Inequality and the Education MDG for Latin America

.Poverty, Inequality, MDG

Job Creation versus Cash Transfers in Kenya

.Job creation, Cash trasnfers, Keny, Poverty, International Poverty Centre

The challenge of pro-poor growth in Uganda

.Poverty, pro-poor, Uganda

Minimum wages and wage structure in Mexico

Instead of merely setting a lower bound on the wages of formal sector workers, minimum wages serve as a norm for wage setting more generally throughout the Mexican economy. Our results suggest that wages are commonly set at multiples of the minimum wage, and that changes in minimum wages influence wage changes across the occupational distribution. Moreover, our findings suggest that these normative features of minimum wages have their greatest impact on the mid-to-lower tail of the wage distribution, including the informal sector of the economy. Thus, the results lend support to the view that declining real minimum wages and stabilization programs that strengthened the link between wage levels, wage changes, and minimum wages, might account for a portion of the growing wage inequality in Mexico over the period of the late 1980s and early 1990s.wage distributions; minimum wages; wage inequality; Mexico

Towards an Employment-centred Development Strategy for Poverty Reduction in The Gambia: Macroeconomic and Labour Market Aspects

This paper reviews the growth, employment, and poverty record of The Gambia focusing on the macroeconomic environment and the structure and functioning of labour markets. Its aim is to identify areas where current policies can be improved or where more knowledge needs to be generated to better inform inclusive development strategies. The growth pattern of The Gambia does not appear to be pro-poor, as improvements in the rate of growth appear to have at best halted the spread of poverty. Weak productivity performance and the low quality of employment help explain the poverty record. On the macroeconomic side, an excessive emphasis on inflation reduction and reliance on rudimentary monetary policy instruments have helped sustain a high-interest rate environment, which discourages investment and employment creation. As part of an alternative policy package, The Gambia could reformulate macroeconomic policies to target growth instead of inflation, select a more effective mix of policy instruments, and pursue financial reforms to increase the supply of credit to the economy and particularly to employment-intensive activities. In addition, targeted public investments are essential for sustaining more rapid growth and improvements in employment opportunities. A review of the available evidence suggests that labour markets in The Gambia do not function in a way conducive to poverty reduction. The employment situation conforms to the typical configuration, whereby traditional activities and informality dominate rural and urban areas. The Gambia also faces high open unemployment rates in cities, particularly among the youth. Measures to increase the labour mobility of the poor are urgently needed. The Gambia has benefited from a rapid increase in literacy and basic education, although more progress is needed to improve the quality of education and, particularly, to provide comprehensive training that adequately meets the demand for skilled labour. Finally, there is an urgent need to overhaul labour institutions with the aim of improving labour conditions, reducing labour segmentation and improving knowledge systems.Towards an Employment-centred Development Strategy for Poverty Reduction in The Gambia: Macroeconomic and Labour Market Aspects