Hulya Dagdeviren

Poverty Reduction with Growth and Redistribution

In the late 1990s the bilateral and multilateral development agencies placed increasing emphasis on poverty reduction in developing countries. This led to the establishment by the United Nations of the ‘International Development Targets’ for poverty reduction. The target of poverty reduction might be achieved through faster economic growth alone, through redistribution, or through a combination of the two. This article presents an analytical framework to assess the effectiveness of growth and redistribution for poverty reduction. It concludes that redistribution, either of current income or the growth increment of income, is more effective in reducing poverty for a majority of countries than growth alone.

Resilience, Hardship and Social Conditions

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of the following article: Hulya Dagdeviren, Matthew Donoghue, and Markus Promberger, ‘Resilience, Hardship and Social Conditions’, Journal of Social Policy, Vol. 45 (1), pp. 1-20, first published online 21 July 2015. The final, published version is available online at DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S004727941500032X

Political economy of contractual disputes in private water and sanitation : lessons from Argentina

This paper examines the causes of the contractual disputes in the water and sanitation sectors and the resulting reversal of the privatization process. The evidence has been gathered from four major case studies in Argentina. The discussion is based on the evidence contained in the legal submissions made by the Government of Argentina and the disputing companies to the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes. The findings of the paper offer important lessons for the design and management of similar contracts for other countries.

The narratives of Hardship: : The new and the old poor in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in Europe

This paper examines poverty and hardship in Europe after the 2008 crisis, using household interviews in nine European countries. A number of findings deserve highlighting. First, making a distinction between ‘the old poor’ (those who lived in poverty before as well as after the crisis) and ‘the new poor’ (those who fell into hardship after the crisis), we show that hardship is experienced quite differently by these groups. Second, the household narratives showed that while material deprivations constitute an important aspect of hardship, the themes of insecurity and dependency also emerged as fundamental dimensions. In contrast to popular political discourse in countries such as the UK, dependency on welfare or family was experienced as a source of distress and manifested as a form of hardship by participants in all countries covered in this study.

A tale of industrial stagnation from Africa

Many African economies have experienced rather dismal industrial development since the 1980s. The consensus is that African firms lack competitiveness in a world with increasing trade openness. What determines competitiveness? A well‐known explanation is that resource endowments in Africa favour land not labour, which results in high wages, especially in comparison with ‘labour abundant’ Asian economies. This paper examines the validity of this view on the basis of the case of Sudan. We demonstrate that the lack of competitiveness of manufacturing industries is not caused by high wages. Assuming a direct relationship between labour productivity and international competitiveness, we argue that acute capacity underutilisation, caused by supply‐side constraints, lowers manufacturing productivity, which in turn negatively influences competitiveness.

A waste of energy? A critical assessment of the investigation of the UK energy market by the Competition and Markets Authority:

In this paper, we assess the findings of the UK energy market investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority, conducted during June 2014–June 2016. We argue that the results of the investigation have been advantageous for the large energy companies and they risk failing to bring any significant and positive change to the energy industry. We highlight three major aspects of the Competition and Markets Authoritys assessment. First, the panel examined retail and wholesale segments of the energy industry in isolation, which can be misleading in the assessment of vertical integration. It also considered new entries to the sector as a sign of competitive strength when many were due to favourable government policies in the form of exemptions from various obligations. Second, its conclusion that a position of unilateral market power by the large energy companies arises from weak customer engagement (i.e. low switching rates) shifts the focus and responsibility for the problems of the energy markets away from the conduct of the companies onto customers. Finally, the investigation placed an overemphasis on competition without due reference to its consequences for consumers’ welfare.

A Political Economy of Privatization Contracts : The Case of Water and Sanitation in Ghana and Argentina

In general, the process and outcomes of privatization have been studied from the point of view of efficiency. In this article, we consider issues in the course of contract design, implementation, management and enforcement in privatized public services and utilities. The study is based on two case studies, involving several water concessions in Argentina and a management contract in the urban water sector in Ghana. Three key arguments are presented on the basis of these case studies. The first is that an individualistic analytical framework is often utilized by the mainstream economic perspectives, but these are inadequate for a comparative assessment of private versus public provision in public services where there are distinct collective or group interests and hence a wider socio-economic context and representation of different interests becomes highly important. Instead, the article proposes a political economy perspective, which pays due attention to distributional issues, group interests, ideology of states and power relations for the assessment of privatization contracts. Second, the administrative capacity of states and their resources play a key role for the outcomes of privatization. Finally, while some contractual issues could be resolved through resourcing and experience over time, others are inherent to the contractual relations with little prospect of remedy.

When rhetoric does not translate to reality: Hardship, empowerment and the third sector in austerity localism

Austerity localism powerfully explains dynamics of (dis)empowerment at the local level, especially regarding the autonomy and accountability of local authorities and third sector organisations (TSOs) in the UK. Yet these dynamics at institutional level have also a clear impact on individuals, especially the socio-economically vulnerable. This is especially true in a time of cost-containment and welfare retrenchment. This article addresses a gap in the literature by focusing not only on TSOs but also on the experiences of vulnerable individuals under austerity localism. The discussion is centred on two types of TSOs: foodbanks and advice/advocacy organisations. Drawing upon primary qualitative data from three locations in England and Wales, the article argues that the emphatic rhetoric of empowerment within austerity localism, which others have shown to be problematic at the institutional level, does not translate into real-world empowerment for service users and other vulnerable individuals. In making the argument the article contributes to work on expanding the analytical scope of austerity localism, as well as further exploring the roles and prospects of TSOs in the current long period of austerity in the UK.