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The Welfare Effects of Trade Preferences Removal: Evidence for UK–India Trade
No full textThis paper examines the welfare effects of the unilateral trade preferences scheme of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) for United Kingdom (UK)–India trade on households in India. The design of unilateral trade preference schemes has been linked to significant uncertainty about preferential market access. And the removal of trade preferences requires adjustments raising trade costs with corresponding effects for workers in sectors reliant on exports in beneficiary countries. I investigate India’s sectoral graduations from the European Union (EU) GSP in 2014 and 2017 that were applicable to the UK until 2020. I also predict the welfare effects of the UK’s Developing Countries Trading Scheme (DCTS) as a hypothetical scenario. These scenarios are of importance as they reflect the combined effect of higher tariffs and uncertainty attached with unilateral preference schemes that could be addressed by a move to a free trade agreement (FTA). Also, there is limited empirical evidence on how unexpected changes in unilateral preferences such as the GSP may specifically affect employment and wage dynamics. Given that the UK aims to balance trade preferences with social equity, the lack of evidence should be of particular importance to the UK. I compute a trade exposure measure and estimate its differential welfare effects using an ordinary least squares (OLS) and quantile regression approach with UK–India trade data and granular high-frequency household-level data for India from 2014–19. I find considerable differences in the effects of trade exposure at the district level with the UK on household welfare in India. The negative welfare effect of trade exposure to graduated sectors appears on wage incomes, especially for lower-income households in urban areas. The overall results show GSP removals affecting the poorest, while the benefits concentrating at higher-income levels. The DCTS predictions suggest arguably these sectoral graduations are designed in a more targeted way as the negative effects are across all income levels, and the benefits also span across income distributions.</p
Land and Property Taxation to Finance Urban Development in Somaliland: Challenges and Prospects for Reform
No full textDespite significant economic growth, particularly in the construction sector, Somaliland faces substantial public infrastructure deficits, which hinder further economic progress and increase business costs. Critical infrastructure needs and the low base of essential public goods provision highlight the need for the government to establish stronger fiscal foundations, particularly at the local level in urban areas. Impressive efforts at establishing an independent fiscal base have occurred in the face of limited international investment and support following independence and a lack of international recognition. Nevertheless, national tax revenues were estimated to be just 7.51 per cent of GDP in 2020, lower than the average for sub-Saharan Africa (14.80 per cent) and low-income countries (11.06 per cent) for the same year.Property-related revenues, mainly land and property taxes, offer great potential to transform the fiscal and developmental landscape of urban centres and the economic future of Somaliland. They are an ideal revenue source to capitalise on by levying taxes on residential and commercial buildings stemming from the growth in commercial banking, international investments, and property development along the Berbera corridor. Despite this potential, and while urban municipalities have made considerable improvements to their property tax systems in recent years, property-related taxation significantly underperforms its potential. Meaningful gains could be made through reform in order to finance urban development.This report examines land and property tax systems in Somaliland’s urban municipalities and focuses on the key challenges and reform opportunities to enhance revenue generation. Emphasising the need for strong political commitment, it suggests a way forward for the implementation of progressive tax reform to finance critical urban development and set the foundations for the nation’s ambitions.Summary of ICTD African Tax Administration Paper 37.</p
Social Protection, Community Participation and State-citizen Relations: Evidence from a Cash Transfer Programme in South-central Somalia
No full textCash transfers are an increasingly popular development intervention. Many studies have focused on the positive impacts of cash transfers on the socio-economic welfare of recipients. Meanwhile, relatively little has been covered regarding when, and under what conditions, cash transfers can have potentially transformative social effects in improving inclusive governance, local development and state-society relations. This study considers whether cash transfers may enable recipients to make informal tax contributions to local community development projects in south-central Somalia.Summary of article published in Social Policy & Administration.</p
Environmental Change, Development Challenges – Revisited
No full textThe establishment of the IDS Environment Group in 1990 created a line of research linked to policy that has remained central to the Institute ever since. In highlighting a series of IDS Bulletin issues, led by IDS researchers, this archive issue tracks the development of this work over the last 35 years. It also tells a broader story of the contribution of IDS to key debates on environment and development evolving over this time. During these decades environmental challenges have become ever more acute, with environmental questions being absolutely central to Development and Development Studies in a world of multiple intersecting crises.So, what then have been the core contributions of this body of work emerging from IDS and partners over the past decades? Some of the themes highlighted by the IDS Bulletins featured here include: key contributions tracking debates over the relationships between environment, development and policy in the early 1990s; the emerging emphases on social dimensions, communities, resources and livelihoods, including work linking environmental research with long-standing gender research at IDS; the politics of environmental knowledge, exploring local knowledges and perspectives and the ways these challenge mainstream science and policy; and uncertain knowledges and the development of the ‘pathways approach’ to sustainability, bringing together understandings of complex, dynamic systems.Over the years all this has combined with analyses of power and political economy, highlighting of questions of justice, both around the causes and consequences of environmental change and the processes of transformation towards more sustainable futures. All of these themes remain relevant to critical policy-oriented research on environment and development emerging from IDS and beyond that we hope will continue to shape global debates on these most crucial issues of our time.</p
Towards a New Political Economy of Climate Change and Development
No full textIn this article, the authors propose a new political economy of climate change and development in which explicit attention is given to the way that ideas, power and resources are conceptualised, negotiated and implemented by different groups at different scales. The climate change and development interface warrants such attention because of its importance to achieving sustainable poverty reduction outcomes, cross-sectoral nature, urgency and rapid emergence of international resource transfers, initiatives and governance architectures, and the frequent assumption of linear policymaking and apolitical, techno-managerial solutions to the climate change challenge.</p
Reframing Climate and Environmental Justice [Introduction]
No full textThis issue of the IDS Bulletin brings together a range of empirically grounded studies that add to – and challenge – contemporary debates on climate and environmental justice. Despite a growing focus on justice dimensions of climate and environmental change, we argue that there are still ‘blind spots’ in mainstream debates that warrant increased attention. In this brief introduction, we point to three in particular: first, a persistent failure to recognise diverse contexts and knowledges; second, a continuing failure to sufficiently appreciate the deep-seated contestations around climate and environmental justice; and third, the risks associated with ‘recovery’ and ‘emergency’ mindsets driving climate and environmental policy agendas. The articles in this collection illustrate and exemplify these issues in different ways and from a variety of methodological, philosophical, and interdisciplinary approaches and positionalities. We argue for a reframing of climate and environmental justice debates and suggest some key principles to make these ‘hidden’ aspects more visible in policy and practice.</p
Conclusion: Environmental Change, Development Challenges – Revisited
No full textI moved from the Institute of Development Studies to the World Bank in 1997, just after the Bank’s social development network was formally created. The social development agenda had been gradually evolving in the Bank over the preceding two decades, initially within the agriculture and rural development department, and later intertwined with the emergence of environmental concerns within the Bank. But it would take considerably longer for social scientists to gain critical mass in the Bank and achieve significant operational influence and impact. In this brief addendum I shed light on how the contributions to knowledge encapsulated in this IDS Bulletin archive issue have also influenced development in practice, viewed through the lens of my own experience at the World Bank.</p
Consideration Cles: Attenuer l'insecurite alimentaire chronique au Soudan du sud
No full textInvestir dans l’agriculture, en particulier dans les activités de subsistance dont la plupart des Sud-Soudanais dépendent, afin de contribuer à l’atténuation de l’insécurité alimentaire chronique à moyen et long terme.</p
Approaches to Progressive Tax Systems
No full textWith inequality being one of the pressing challenges the world faces tax policy emerges as “a key fiscal policy tool to address inequality”. Tax policy can cover the entire income distribution and reach the top through progressive taxation of high incomes and wealth (Hebous et al., 2024, p. 4). This report provides an overview of literature identifying how countries have attempted to ensure more progressive tax systems (across income and wealth distributions). </p
Factors Influencing the Sustainability and Equity of Science & Technology Partnerships
No full textScience and Technology (S&T) partnerships are instrumental in addressing intractable global problems, such as climate change and emerging infectious diseases. Although S&T partnerships have increased globally, more than 4 out of every 10 are likely not to live beyond a brief period and fail to achieve their goals. A critical consideration of factors influencing the sustainability and equity of the partnerships should be done. Therefore, this rapid evidence review (RER) summarises evidence on the factors influencing the sustainability and equity of S&T partnerships.</p