The ESRC Global Poverty and Inequality Dynamics (GPID) Strategic Research Network
Lead Research Organisation:
King's College London
Department Name: International Development Institute
Abstract
The network will define a new research agenda that considers how inclusive growth and structural economic transformation are related in different contexts; and the implications of that for reducing global poverty.
The driving ambition of the network is to establish and build the intellectual foundations and academic and non-academic network necessary for a future comparative research project with associated methodologies to be submitted as a large grant or centre application.
The network will assemble a highly international group with academics, policymakers in international aid agencies (the World Bank, the IMF, the UNDP and UNDESA) and bilateral aid agencies and networks (the UK-DFID and the OECD-DAC) and civil society organisations from emerging economies (via Oxfam's Inequality in Emerging Powers Civil Society Network), bringing together perspectives from political science, economics, public policy and development studies. The network will also actively disseminate the research to a wider academic, policy and civil society audience via a dedicated website, social media and academic associations. These different stakeholders will co-produce the new research agenda.
The network will be based around the following activities: a launch meeting and two substantive international workshops, a set of papers for a journal special issue and accompanying briefs, and a set of concept/regional and country notes; a dedicated website with project outputs and annotated literature searches; literature summaries and relevant datasets.
The proposal is directly and primarily relevant to the development challenges of the countries listed because it is about maximising poverty reduction; the project is about inclusive - shared - economic growth and is concerned with maximising the poverty reducing power of sustained, structural change-driven economic growth.
The project addresses a point of tension in the developmental objectives of these countries around inclusive growth and structural change which are linked by the dynamics of inequalities. The project will help understand better the inequality dynamics of inclusive growth and structural change and in particular identify how and what policy interventions governments of globalised economies can introduce or adjust or change to seek to balance their developmental objectives of inclusive growth and structural transformation, maximising poverty reduction and attaining the sustainable development goals that relate to poverty.
The following countries will directly benefit: India, China, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa and the Philippines. This list of 7 countries is home to two-thirds of the world's extreme poor. The project would also be of relevance to a range of other new middle-income developing countries as well as established middle-income developing countries. It will also be of relevance to low-income or least developed countries considering pathways and policies for inclusive growth, structural economic transformation and poverty reduction.
The driving ambition of the network is to establish and build the intellectual foundations and academic and non-academic network necessary for a future comparative research project with associated methodologies to be submitted as a large grant or centre application.
The network will assemble a highly international group with academics, policymakers in international aid agencies (the World Bank, the IMF, the UNDP and UNDESA) and bilateral aid agencies and networks (the UK-DFID and the OECD-DAC) and civil society organisations from emerging economies (via Oxfam's Inequality in Emerging Powers Civil Society Network), bringing together perspectives from political science, economics, public policy and development studies. The network will also actively disseminate the research to a wider academic, policy and civil society audience via a dedicated website, social media and academic associations. These different stakeholders will co-produce the new research agenda.
The network will be based around the following activities: a launch meeting and two substantive international workshops, a set of papers for a journal special issue and accompanying briefs, and a set of concept/regional and country notes; a dedicated website with project outputs and annotated literature searches; literature summaries and relevant datasets.
The proposal is directly and primarily relevant to the development challenges of the countries listed because it is about maximising poverty reduction; the project is about inclusive - shared - economic growth and is concerned with maximising the poverty reducing power of sustained, structural change-driven economic growth.
The project addresses a point of tension in the developmental objectives of these countries around inclusive growth and structural change which are linked by the dynamics of inequalities. The project will help understand better the inequality dynamics of inclusive growth and structural change and in particular identify how and what policy interventions governments of globalised economies can introduce or adjust or change to seek to balance their developmental objectives of inclusive growth and structural transformation, maximising poverty reduction and attaining the sustainable development goals that relate to poverty.
The following countries will directly benefit: India, China, Nigeria, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa and the Philippines. This list of 7 countries is home to two-thirds of the world's extreme poor. The project would also be of relevance to a range of other new middle-income developing countries as well as established middle-income developing countries. It will also be of relevance to low-income or least developed countries considering pathways and policies for inclusive growth, structural economic transformation and poverty reduction.
Planned Impact
Who will benefit from this network?
The beneficiaries of the network will include the researchers and research users involved such as the World Bank, the IMF, the UNDP, the UK-DFID, the OECD-DAC and Oxfam's Inequality in Emerging Powers Civil Society Global Network and the broader staff of these organisations as well as the wider academic community (globally and in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines and South Africa) working on issues of poverty, inequality and economic growth and economic development in the fields of economics, political science, public policy and development studies. There is demonstrable interest in the organisations listed above evidenced by publications in the case for support. However, there is no current network to bring these actors together. The network will also benefit those working directly in policy formation, and policy advocacy in the set of seven emerging economies, other emerging economies and also in the planning of development strategies of the poorest countries.
How will they benefit from this network?
The academic community and research user community outlined above will benefit from the new knowledge generated in terms of their understanding of the state of the art in the area and what governments can do to maximise poverty reduction in terms of policies. The agenda-setting papers in the journal special issue and their accompanying one-page briefs will provide the main content to do this. Additionally, the academic and policy community will benefit from the building of a database on the dedicated network website which will include existing evidence summaries, papers and datasets on the issues and annotated literature searches on specific sub-questions (using Web of Science and Google Scholar); key concept/regional/country notes summarising literatures on specific questions and links to relevant datasets (with user instructions). The policymaking and policy advocates community will benefit from the briefs in particular. The policymakers from the IMF, World Bank, UNDP, UK-DFID, OECD-DAC and civil society will be embedded in the network as co-producers of the research agenda and producers themselves of concept notes and regional or country notes. The website will also include regular blogs, and op-eds by network members which will be of use to policymakers and policy advocates and the Twitter account will direct those who follow the account or retweet to relevant papers, blogs, policy briefs, media pieces and datasets.
What is the relevance of the network to beneficiaries and potential for impact?
The network's relevance to beneficiaries is that it addresses head-on the nexus of poverty, inequality and growth and how governments maximise poverty reduction. The impact of the network in terms of academic impact (agenda-setting, citations and interest in the network's work and future work) will be via the set of papers in the special issue and the website database. The outcomes will disseminate to the wider academic and policy and civil society community via the website and Twitter and other social media. The impact of the network in terms of research users will be via a set of accessible evidence pieces - summaries, briefs, blogs, and op-eds - written for those working in policy and policy advocacy in civil society organisations in terms of what governments can do concretely to maximise poverty reduction. These will have the potential for impact via dissemination and percolation into policy debates in the seven countries directly covered in the network and in international agencies by the embedding of policy and civil society actors in the network itself.
The beneficiaries of the network will include the researchers and research users involved such as the World Bank, the IMF, the UNDP, the UK-DFID, the OECD-DAC and Oxfam's Inequality in Emerging Powers Civil Society Global Network and the broader staff of these organisations as well as the wider academic community (globally and in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines and South Africa) working on issues of poverty, inequality and economic growth and economic development in the fields of economics, political science, public policy and development studies. There is demonstrable interest in the organisations listed above evidenced by publications in the case for support. However, there is no current network to bring these actors together. The network will also benefit those working directly in policy formation, and policy advocacy in the set of seven emerging economies, other emerging economies and also in the planning of development strategies of the poorest countries.
How will they benefit from this network?
The academic community and research user community outlined above will benefit from the new knowledge generated in terms of their understanding of the state of the art in the area and what governments can do to maximise poverty reduction in terms of policies. The agenda-setting papers in the journal special issue and their accompanying one-page briefs will provide the main content to do this. Additionally, the academic and policy community will benefit from the building of a database on the dedicated network website which will include existing evidence summaries, papers and datasets on the issues and annotated literature searches on specific sub-questions (using Web of Science and Google Scholar); key concept/regional/country notes summarising literatures on specific questions and links to relevant datasets (with user instructions). The policymaking and policy advocates community will benefit from the briefs in particular. The policymakers from the IMF, World Bank, UNDP, UK-DFID, OECD-DAC and civil society will be embedded in the network as co-producers of the research agenda and producers themselves of concept notes and regional or country notes. The website will also include regular blogs, and op-eds by network members which will be of use to policymakers and policy advocates and the Twitter account will direct those who follow the account or retweet to relevant papers, blogs, policy briefs, media pieces and datasets.
What is the relevance of the network to beneficiaries and potential for impact?
The network's relevance to beneficiaries is that it addresses head-on the nexus of poverty, inequality and growth and how governments maximise poverty reduction. The impact of the network in terms of academic impact (agenda-setting, citations and interest in the network's work and future work) will be via the set of papers in the special issue and the website database. The outcomes will disseminate to the wider academic and policy and civil society community via the website and Twitter and other social media. The impact of the network in terms of research users will be via a set of accessible evidence pieces - summaries, briefs, blogs, and op-eds - written for those working in policy and policy advocacy in civil society organisations in terms of what governments can do concretely to maximise poverty reduction. These will have the potential for impact via dissemination and percolation into policy debates in the seven countries directly covered in the network and in international agencies by the embedding of policy and civil society actors in the network itself.
Organisations
Publications
Anthony D'Costa
(2017)
A Point of no Return? Changing Structures and Jobless Growth in India
Armando Barrientos
(2018)
Productivist Social Assistance and 21st-Century Development Models
Castells-Quintana D
(2017)
Beyond Kuznets: Inequality and the size and distribution of cities
in Journal of Regional Science
David Castells-Quintana
(2017)
Beyond Kuznets: Inequality and the Size and Distribution of Cities
Ingrid Bleynat
(2017)
Inequality, Living Standards and Growth: Two Centuries of Economic Development in Mexico
Kyunghoon Kim
(2017)
How Inclusive is Structural Change? The Case of Indonesia
| Description | The ESRC GPID network has built a new research agenda collaboratively on inclusive growth and the inequality dynamics of structural economic transformation. The network identified a twin challenge as follows. First, the network identified the challenge for developing countries of starting on and sustaining the 'traditional' model of economic development of industrialization (which has tended to be employment-rich and thus more equalizing). This is particularly as increasingly more countries compete over a place in fragmented global value chains (GVCs) or the 'GVC-world', meaning a world where industrial production is dominated by fragmented chains of production, often across numerous countries. Second, the network identified the challenge for developing countries in that many middle-income developing countries are shifting from a 'traditional' to a 'new' pathway of economic development, namely that of deindustrialization or tertiarization (which could have a tendency to be unequalizing if employment shifts to less equal sectors, or if employment growth is weak). These twin challenges point to some big questions ahead related to how to make traditional, equalizing pathways of economic development, i.e. industrialization, more viable, or how to make new pathways of economic development, i.e. service-sector-led growth, more equalizing and employment-rich. The network further discussed how technological change will likely exacerbate these twin challenges because the kinds of jobs common in developing countries, such as routine agricultural or manufacturing work, are substantially susceptible to automation. In light of these points, the network has generated a set of new research questions through which to pursue this agenda. First, what are the 'varieties' of contemporary deindustrialization in the developing world and how do they differ from deindustrialization in the developed countries? And are the episodes best described as deindustrialization or tertiarization? Second, what factors drive the different varieties of deindustrialization in the developing world, and what is the institutional basis and social structure of each variety of deindustrialization? Third, what is the potential for service-sector-led growth to replace manufacturing in terms of value-added and employment growth, or what would make reindustrialization a viable economic development strategy? Fourth, who are the winners and losers in a relative and/or absolute sense in each variety of deindustrialization? Fifth, what is the role of the state and public policy in regulatory and distributional governance related respectively to deindustrialization? |
| Exploitation Route | Network activities are publicised via the network website, Facebook and Twitter. The network beneficiaries are those involved and the wider academic community working on issues of inequality dynamics, structural change and poverty reduction as well as those working in policymaking and policy advocates in CSOs. |
| Sectors | Government, Democracy and Justice |
| URL | http://www.developersdilemma.org |
| Description | The ESRC GCRF Global Poverty and Inequality Dynamics (GPID) network has brought together a highly international and interdisciplinary group of 100 scholars and policy professionals, of 29 different nationalities and from 68 institutions in developing countries and the OECD. There is a wider group of interested people of up to 4,000 people globally via 'distinct' users on the network's website downloads (briefs, blogs and papers), which have been specifically written for an audience of policymakers and NGO staff. The 100 active participants have come from a range of disciplines and areas including international development studies, economics (orthodox and heterodox), political science, geography, sociology, public policy studies, social anthropology and epidemiology. The network has developed a set of 'core' institutional partners from a range of disciplines in nine developing countries (all DAC ODA-eligible countries). The network has also had active engagement with policymakers in the Department for International Development (DFID), the World Bank, the OECD, the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as with policy and research staff in Oxfam, Action Aid, Save the Children and Fight Inequality, a global alliance of civil society organizations. Other roles have been a wider network of those who have engaged via the website (1,200-page views per month from over 4000 distinct users, of whom 40 per cent were in developing countries), the blog and working papers and briefs and/or following the network activity on Twitter. The network has built capacity of both established and early-career researchers (ECRs), and PhD students from developing countries and in the NGO community. The network has built capacity of PhD students and ECRs from developing countries to present their work to scholarly audiences at international workshops and at conferences, and to get useful feedback on their research at the PhD and early-career researchers masterclasses, and at the DSA and EADI conference panels. Each of the masterclasses included several presentations of work in progress by PhD students from developing countries in discussion and feedback sessions with invited high-profile academics. The two academic panels at each of the DSA and EADI conferences specifically invited PhD students and ECRs from developing countries (some studying in the UK and some on conference bursaries). Both panels were also co-convened by ECRs. The network has built capacity in nine developing country universities: the University of Cape Town, South Africa; the University of Ghana; the University of Delhi, India; the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh; Beijing Normal University, China; the University of Malaya, Malaysia; Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; Insper, Brazil and Padjadjaran University, Indonesia. It has enhanced capacity of the researchers attending the workshops and engaging with the network activities (many of whom have PhD students and ECR colleagues) in order to publish in international outlets and engage and write collaborative, cross-country grant proposals which are under development. ECRs were also participants at the Bangkok workshop that discussed and designed the new research agenda and a meeting was held afterwards with a group of prospective PhD students. The network has also built capacity in terms of the survey and data skills of a number of PhD students from developing countries, studying in the UK and working with the PI on survey and data work for the webpages. The network has built the capacity of the network coordinator (Schlogl) in organizing a global network (and now his appointment at the University of Vienna). The network has further built capacity of both academic and NGO staff to engage with each other in developing a research agenda via the international workshops in particular and in developing proposals together. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
| Sector | Government, Democracy and Justice |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | The convening of 4 policy seminars (in London at DFID; Paris at OECD and Bangkok (think-tank) and Kuala Lumpur (think-tank); |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Four policy seminars were held in London at the Department for Internatioal Development, Paris at the OECD and at think-tanks in Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017,2018 |