In her new book, The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems: An Intersectional Political Economy, PERI's Nancy Folbre argues that gender inequality has taken on new forms, even as it has diminished over time. Intensified inequalities based on race/ethnicity, citizenship, and class have weakened families and communities, leaving caregivers particularly vulnerable. Intersectional political economy emphasizes the complexity of collective conflicts over the means of production and reproduction, including access to capital, but also to family care, health, education, and a safe and sustainable environment. It lays a theoretical foundation for the development of broad coalitions to challenge all forms of exploitation.

Capital flight constitutes a major constraint to Africa’s efforts to fill the large and growing financing gaps that hold back its progress towards achieving sustainable development goals. The mounting evidence on the unrecorded outflows of capital from Africa has spurred calls for strategies to curb this financial hemorrhage.  In five working papers, PERI researchers James Boyce and Leonce Ndikumana, along with five other contributing authors, provide in-depth analyses on the causes and consequences of capital flight from Africa. The papers include case studies on Angola, Ivory Coast, and South Africa, as well as detailed proposals for bringing African capital flight under control.

This new book edited by PERI researcher Jayati Ghosh includes five chapters that examine a range of policies and practices for the formalization of women’s employment in developing countries, focusing on India, Thailand, South Africa, Ghana and Morocco. The case studies find that despite some limited successes in providing social protection benefits to some informal workers, most formalization policies have not really improved working conditions for women workers. The studies demonstrate that formalization policies that do not recognize gendered realities and prevailing socio-economic conditions may be less effective and even counterproductive.