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Tax, and public-sector matters more generally, is high on the agenda of international development. This is clearly reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved by the United Nations General Assembly in September of 2015. SDG17 addresses the need for improving domestic resource mobilization (DRM) directly, and most of the other SDGs cannot be achieved without adequate tax and spending policies. To give just a few examples, SDG10 (reduced inequalities) will depend on government capacity to redistribute income, whereas SDG8 (decent work) requires that tax systems do not create an unnecessarily large burden on economic efficiency. Together these goals reflect the classic efficiency–equity trade-off, which is at the heart of public economics research and policy analysis. Finally, unless all households have sufficient market income (a highly unlikely scenario), the very first SDG (eradicating poverty) requires the presence of social safety nets, which must be financed by public monies. This is the backdrop, against which UNU-WIDER organized a WIDER Development Conference on the theme of "Public Economics for Development" in Maputo, Mozambique, 5–6 July 2017. The conference was wide-ranging, including papers and keynote lectures on all areas of public economics, as applied to developing country contexts. This special issue includes five studies from the conference. In what follows, we first reflect briefly on a set of key issues when researching the public sector in developing countries before summarizing the selected articles.

AbstractBuilding knowledge about migration governance and policy in the Global South is a priority for research and policy. The studies in this special section offer both new empirical insights and new frameworks for analysis, with key policy implications, that can enrich our discussion of these topics. They focus on issues that relate to national and sub‐national level governance and policy, speaking both to the impact of diverse governance structures and policies on the well‐being of migrants and host communities, and of the policy‐making process itself and the factors influencing that process. In so doing, they point toward promising directions for future work on these topics and underscore the value of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and cross‐regional analysis. This essay provides an introduction to the studies included in this collection, framing their contributions in the context of research in development and ongoing global discussions on migration policy.

This editorial provides an introduction to and overview of the thematic issue on "Aid Impact and Effectiveness". The guest editors put the specific contributions of the nine articles in perspective referring to the wider literature on foreign aid and its allocation, impact, and efficiency, as well as the political and economic processes in which aid operates. They discuss the historical and present-day context for foreign aid and provide summaries of the individual articles, highlighting policy implications and future research needs.

Building knowledge about migration governance and policy in the Global South is a priority for research and policy. The studies in this special section offer both new empirical insights and new frameworks for analysis, with key policy implications, that can enrich our discussion of these topics. They focus on issues that relate to national and sub‐national level governance and policy, speaking both to the impact of diverse governance structures and policies on the well‐being of migrants and host communities, and of the policy‐making process itself and the factors influencing that process. In so doing, they point toward promising directions for future work on these topics and underscore the value of multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and cross‐regional analysis. This essay provides an introduction to the studies included in this collection, framing their contributions in the context of research in development and ongoing global discussions on migration policy.

This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on the potential benefits of the Internet on rural livelihoods. We estimate the relationship between Internet access and agricultural production in rural Viet Nam using a panel dataset from 2008–2012. This is a time span during which Internet access increased substantially and government‐run and private online outlets providing information about agriculture started to operate. Our findings suggest that Internet access is associated with a 6.8% higher volume of total agricultural output. We find that this result is manifested through more efficient use of fertilizer. Our findings are stronger for younger households. The less developed northern provinces have benefited the most from the arrival of the Internet. The results are weaker in the case of rice, which is related to strong government involvement in rice production and prices.

This editorial provides an introduction to and overview of the thematic issue on "Aid Impact and Effectiveness". The guest editors put the specific contributions of the nine articles in perspective referring to the wider literature on foreign aid and its allocation, impact, and efficiency, as well as the political and economic processes in which aid operates. They discuss the historical and present-day context for foreign aid and provide summaries of the individual articles, highlighting policy implications and future research needs.

This editorial provides an introduction to and overview of the thematic issue on "Aid Impact and Effectiveness". The guest editors put the specific contributions of the nine articles in perspective referring to the wider literature on foreign aid and its allocation, impact, and efficiency, as well as the political and economic processes in which aid operates. They discuss the historical and present-day context for foreign aid and provide summaries of the individual articles, highlighting policy implications and future research needs.

As research on the empirical link between aid and growth continues to grow, it is time to revisit the accumulated evidence on aid effectiveness. This paper extends previous meta-analyses, noting that the availability of more data enables us to conduct a sub-group analysis by disaggregating the sample into different time horizons and assess if there are temporal shifts in aid effectiveness. The new and updated results show that the earlier reported positive evidence of aid's impact is robust to the inclusion of more recent studies and this holds for different time horizons as well. The authenticity of the observed effect is also confirmed by results from funnel plots, regression-based tests, and a cumulative meta-analysis for publication bias.

Although manufacturing has played an important role in the growth of developing countries, Africa has lagged in this industry. This book argues that activities sharing the characteristics of manufacturing, including tourism and ICT, are beginning to play an important role in Africa, offering new opportunities for growth in coming decades.

Structural transformation in Africa has become a hot topic. One of the earliest stylized facts of development economics is that low-income countries have large differences in output per worker across sectors, and movement of workers from low- to high-productivity sectors—structural transformation is a key driver of economic growth. Between 1950 and 2006, about half of the catch-up by developing countries—led by East Asia—to advanced economy productivity levels was due to rising productivity within manufacturing combined with structural transformation out of agriculture. Manufacturing has the capacity to employ large numbers of unskilled workers, is capable of large productivity gains through innovation, and entails tradeable products that permit economies of scale and specialization. But manufacturing in Africa, rather than leading growth, has typically been a lagging sector. In 2014, the average share of manufacturing in GDP in sub-Saharan Africa hovered around 10 per cent, unchanged from the 1970s, leading some observers to be pessimistic about Africa's potential to catch the wave of sustained rapid growth and rising incomes. This book challenges that view. It argues that other activities sharing the characteristics of manufacturing—including tourism, ICT, and other services as well as food processing and horticulture—are beginning to play a role analogous to the role that manufacturing played in East Asia. This reflects not only changes in the global organization of industries since the early era of rapid East Asian growth, but also advantages unique to Africa. These 'industries without smokestacks' offer new opportunities for Africa to grow in coming decades.

This paper puts sub-Saharan Africa's economic development into perspective. While much did not go as hoped for at independence, much of the region has been on a more promising development trajectory since the mid-1990s, as we illustrate using growth, poverty, and human development indicators. We identify key weaknesses, including lack of structural transformation and the slow rate of employment growth. We refer to global shocks that have played a critical role in sub-Saharan Africa's economic performance alongside domestic events, policies, and governance. Finally, we discuss a set of critical challenges requiring effective management for sub-Saharan Africa to realize its considerable development potential.

The purpose of this report is to give a nuanced picture of the SME business environment in Myanmar as a complement to the 2017 MSME quantitative survey conducted within the project 'Towards Inclusive Development in Myanmar'. This project is a collaboration between the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) of the Ministry of Planning and Finance of Myanmar, the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), and the University of Copenhagen, supported financially by Denmark. We build on quantitative results and explore in more detail a set of selected topics, as well as specific industries relevant for policy focus. We also identify areas in which our quantitative data leave room for improvement in explaining reality and specify guidelines for future modifications of the MSME survey questionnaire, as well as points of attention in future analysis of quantitative data. The analysis uses qualitative data and responses from 108 in-depth interviews with enterprise owners, managers, employees, and officers from relevant government institutions. We conducted the interviews over the course of six weeks during the period from March to October 2018 in 15 townships from nine regions and states in Myanmar. The respondents were chosen from the quantitative survey data using a combination of purposeful and random sampling aiming to maximize the breadth and relevance of information. The interview team comprised both Myanmar and English language speakers, so the interviews were carried out with interpretation in both languages. We focus on three topics. First, we provide a qualitative in-depth analysis of informality, putting forth the challenges SMEs face when interacting with different government institutions. Second, we analyse the gender wage gap, particularly focusing on occupational segregation. Third, we describe the wood sector and its particularities.

This paper documents the compilation of a Pre-Prototype 2015 Social Accounting Matrix for Myanmar and provides an overview of key economic structural features of this emerging economy in a challenging process of transition. We built this Social Accounting Matrix using National Accounts and Supply and Use Table data as well as Balance of Payment data for the 2014–15 fiscal year together with Government Budget Statistics from the 2017 Statistical Yearbook. It provides a detailed representation of the Myanmar economy and identifies 43 activities and 43 commodities. We disaggregated labour by education attainment level and household income and expenditure by per capita expenditure quintiles for both urban and rural areas and farm and non-farm categories. The Social Accounting Matrix features government, investment, and foreign accounts and is a key database for conducting economy-wide impact assessments to strengthen the evidence underlying policy interventions.

This paper documents the compilation of a Pre-Prototype 2015 Social Accounting Matrix for Myanmar and provides an overview of key economic structural features of this emerging economy in a challenging process of transition. We built this Social Accounting Matrix using National Accounts and Supply and Use Table data as well as Balance of Payment data for the 2014-15 fiscal year together with Government Budget Statistics from the 2017 Statistical Yearbook. It provides a detailed representation of the Myanmar economy and identifies 43 activities and 43 commodities. We disaggregated labour by education attainment level and household income and expenditure by per capita expenditure quintiles for both urban and rural areas and farm and non-farm categories. The Social Accounting Matrix features government, investment, and foreign accounts and is a key database for conducting economy-wide impact assessments to strengthen the evidence underlying policy interventions.