Poor Protection - The Role of Taxes Social Benefits in Developing World During Crises

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This book examines the role of social protection and taxation systems in developing countries during times of crises. The main objective of the work is to promote understanding about proper crisis response, and the way social protection and tax systems can be made more sustainable to support countries' paths through and out of economic crises. While there is a vast body of literature evaluating social protection programmes in general, few of these focus on episodes of crisis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number and scale of social protection programmes increased rapidly around the globe, but many developing countries lacked a systematic approach to social protection and taxation.

Crises have a devastating effect on employment, incomes, and livelihoods. These impacts are more dangerous when people are already in a vulnerable position. This has become very clear during the latest worldwide crises, including the sharp rise in food and fuel prices. Armoured with comprehensive policies and systems for social protection and taxation, developing countries could enable automatic and speedy assistance when crises hit across the entire income distribution. Analogously to the currently standard financial stress testing in anticipation of crises, thorough stress testing of social protection and tax policies is also of crucial importance.

Poor Protection explores to what extent tax-benefit systems can act as automatic stabilizers in a developing country context during crises, and how they can help provide the fiscal space necessary to cushion at least the most detrimental developments in terms of inequality.

List of contents

• 1: Jukka Pirttilä, Maria Jouste, Ravi Kanbur; Pia Rattenhuber: Introduction: Protecting the poor and vulnerable when crises are the New Normal


• 2: Rodrigo Oliveira, Jesse Lastunen, Pia Rattenhuber, Melissa Samarin; Adnan Shahir: Strengthening resilience: Investigating the effectiveness of social protection and tax policies in cushioning income and poverty impacts amidst crises in low- and middle-income countries: A scoping review


• Part I Performance of tax-benefit systems during crises


• 3: Katrin Gasior, Iva V. Tasseva; Gemma Wright: The impact of social protection on poverty through normal times and times of crisis: Evidence from Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia


• 4: Jesse Lastunen, Adnan Shahir, Pia Rattenhuber, Kwabena Adu-Ababio; Rodrigo C. Oliveira: Performance of tax-benefit systems during the COVID-19 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa: A comparative perspective


• 5: David Rodríguez Guerrero, H. Xavier Jara, Mariana Dondo, Cristina Arancibia, David Macas Romero, Rebeca Riella, Joana Urraburu, Linda Llamas, Luis Huesca, Javier Torres; Rodrigo Chang: The role of taxes and benefits in protecting household incomes during the COVID-19 pandemic: An analysis of seven Latin American countries


• 6: Antoine de Mahieu;Jesse Lastunen: The cushioning effects of tax-benefit policies in Viet Nam during the COVID-19 pandemic


• Part II Income developments and specific policies during COVID-19


• 7: Timothy Köhler, Haroon Bhorat;Robert Hill: The effect of wage subsidies on job retention: Evidence from South Africa during the COVID-19 pandemic


• 8: Cuong Viet Nguyen: The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and aid packages in Vietnam


• 9: Olivier Bargain, Paul Carrillo-Maldonado, and H. Xavier Jara: Top earnings and inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador: Evidence from administrative data


• Part III Looking ahead


• 10: Annalena Oppel: Social protection floor gaps and pandemic relief: Embracing universalism?


• 11: Enrico Nichelatti, Maria Jouste;Pia Rattenhuber: The potential of universal basic income schemes to buffer shocks: Comparing Uganda and Zambia during COVID-19


• 12: Adnan Shahir, Ravi Kanbur, Jukka Pirttilä Pia Rattenhuber: Targeted versus universal benefits: Poverty-reduction performance in times of crisis


• 13: Dingquan Miao, Ravi Kanbur;Jukka Pirttilä: Optimal taxation in crisis times: Simulation results for Zambia


• Part IV Summary and policy takeaways


• 14: Rattenhuber: Summary


• 15: Jukka Pirttilä, Maria Jouste, Ravi Kanbur; Pia Rattenhuber: Discussion of main policy implications

About the author

Maria Jouste is a research associate at UNU-WIDER. She holds a PhD in economics from the University of Turku. Her research interest is in development and public economics, focusing on taxation and social protection in developing countries. She uses both empirical and microsimulation methods for the evaluation of policy-relevant research questions, and has experience in curating and employing large administrative tax data in collaboration with African revenue authorities.

Ravi Kanbur is T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs and Economics at Cornell University and Co-Chair of the Food Systems Economics Commission. He has served on the senior staff of the World Bank including as Chief Economist for Africa and has published work in leading economics journals. He has previously held positions as Chair of the Board of United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research, member of the OECD High-Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance, President of the Human Development and Capability Association, President of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.

Jukka Pirttilä is Professor of Public Economics at the University of Helsinki and VATT Institute for Economic Research. He also serves as the deputy director of Helsinki Graduate School of Economics and as a Non-Resident Senior Research Fellow at UNU-WIDER. He conducts research on topics in public economics, especially tax policies, with a special reference to taxation in developing countries.

Pia Rattenhuber is a research fellow at UNU-WIDER. She works in the fields of public, development, and labour economics, specializing in redistribution policies. She leads UNU-WIDER's work on tax-benefit microsimulation in the SOUTHMOD project. She holds a PhD from Free University Berlin and previously worked for the OECD (in the Department of Labour and Social Affairs), the German Ministry of Economics, and the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW Berlin).

Product details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 11.09.2025
• EAN: 9780198909422
• ISBN: 978-0-19-890942-2
• No. of pages: 368
• Series: WIDER Studies in Development Economics
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business > Economics; BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economics / General, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic History, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Development / Economic Development, Welfare economics, Economic systems and structures, Economic systems & structures, Economic and financial crises and disasters, Development Economics, Development economics and emerging economies, Financial Crises & Disasters