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on Africa |
| By: | Costas Lapavitsas (University of London) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | Poverty, ODA, Sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | C19 |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:37&r=afr |
| By: | Terry McKinley (International Poverty Centre) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | Poverty, Africa, ODA |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:34&r=afr |
| By: | John Nellis (International Analytics) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | Poverty, MDG, Africa |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:31&r=afr |
| By: | Kate Bayliss (Independent Consultant, Brighton, United Kingdom) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | Poverty, MDG, Africa, Sub-Saharan, Nellis |
| Date: | 2007–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:32&r=afr |
| By: | Nanak Kakwani (International Poverty Centre); Fabio Veras Soares (International Poverty Centre); Hyun H. Son (International Poverty Centre) |
| Abstract: | Poverty affects a large proportion of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa and, far from decreasing, the proportion and numbers of poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa have actually increased over the last ten years. Policies to reduce poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and elsewhere are defying conventional wisdom. Single-focus solutions have proved ineffective. There is an urgent need to learn from both successful and failed experiences that have been tried elsewhere. This study provides an ex-ante assessment of the implementation of a cash transfer programme conditional on school attendance in 15 Sub-Saharan African countries. Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes have been tried in other regions, notably Latin America, with relative success. The two key characteristics of CCT programmes are that they simultaneously act upon the short and long term dimensions of poverty. Therefore we investigate here both the impact of a cash transfer on current poverty and the impact of conditioning the transfer upon school attendance. |
| Keywords: | Conditional Cash Transfers, Poverty, Africa, Developing Countries |
| JEL: | F16 J31 |
| Date: | 2005–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:wpaper:9&r=afr |
| By: | Daniel Flemes (GIGA Institute of Latin American Studies) |
| Abstract: | Regional powers can be distinguished by four pivotal criteria: claim to leadership, power resources, employment of foreign policy instruments, and acceptance of leadership. Applying these indicators to the South African case, the analysis demonstrates the crucial significance of institutional foreign policy instruments. But although the South African government is ready to pay the costs of co-operative hegemony (such as capacity building for regional institutions and peacekeeping), the regional acceptance of South Africa’s leadership is constrained by its historical legacy. Additionally, Pretoria’s foreign policy is based on ideational resources such as its reputation as an advocate of democracy and human rights and the legitimacy derived from its paradigmatic behaviour as a ‘good global citizen’. However, the Mbeki presidency is more successful in converting these resources into discursive instruments of interest-assertion in global, rather than in regional bargains. In effect the regional power’s reformist South-oriented multilateralism is challenging some of the guiding principles of the current international system. |
| Keywords: | South Africa, regional power, foreign policy, co-operative hegemony, multipolarisation of the international system |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gig:wpaper:53&r=afr |
| By: | Phillippe G. Leite (World Bank Research Department and Previous Research and Consultant for the International Poverty Centre, UNDP); Terry McKinley (International Poverty Centre); Rafael Guerreiro Osório (International Poverty Centre) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the trend in post-Apartheid earnings inequality in South Africa. By combining data sets, the paper is able to analyze the trend for the whole period 1995-2004. Earnings inequality rose sharply during 1995-1999 and then declined marginally, but remained high, during 2000-2004. A dramatic rise in unemployment was the driving force in exacerbating earnings inequality in the 1990s. Unemployment began to level off in the 2000s but remained at a high rate. An unprecedented influx of new entrants into the formal labour market in the 1990s put downward pressure on average real wages, affecting workers both in the middle of the distribution and toward the bottom. The growth of the South African economy has been neither rapid enough nor employment-intensive enough to absorb such a large influx of workers. Moreover, the economy?s greater openness to trade and financial flows appears to have left many workers behind, especially Africans, workers in low-skilled occupations, residents of rural areas in general and poor regions in particular. Earnings inequality remains high across groupings of workers differentiated by race, education and occupation although occupation has become a more important factor than the other two in the 2000s. Differentials across the mean earnings of workers classified by rural and urban residence and by province have also intensified. In the 1990s, inequalities within groupings of worker rose sharply and then moderated by the 2000s. While earnings differentials by race and the rural-urban divide also exacerbated inequality in the 1990s, they have been in modest decline since then. These changes in the dynamics of earnings inequality between the 1990s and 2000s pose new challenges for South African policymakers in their efforts to substantially reduce the Apartheid legacy of high inequality and poverty. |
| Keywords: | South Africa, Income distribution, Earnings distribution, Inequality |
| JEL: | I32 D31 N36 O15 |
| Date: | 2006–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:wpaper:32&r=afr |
| By: | Anne Case (Princeton University); Angus Deaton (Princeton University) |
| Abstract: | This paper presents a descriptive account of health and economic status in India and South Africa – countries in very different positions in the international hierarchy of life expectancy and income. The paper emphasizes the lack of any simple and reliable relationship between health and wealth between and within our sites in rural Rajasthan, in a shack township outside of Cape Town, and in a rural South African site that, until 1994, was part of a Bantustan. Income levels across our sites are roughly in the ratio of 4:2:1, with urban South Africa richest and rural Rajasthan poorest, while ownership of durable goods, often used as a short-cut measure or check of living standards, are in the ratio of 3:2:1. These differences in economic status are reflected in respondents’ own reports of financial status. People know that they are poor, but appear to adapt their expectations to local conditions, at least to some extent. The South Africans are taller and heavier than the Indians—although their children are no taller at the same age. South African self-assessed physical and mental health is no better, and South Africans are more likely to report that they have to miss meals for lack of money. In spite of differences in incomes across the three sites, South Africans and Indians report a very similar list of symptoms of ill-health. Although they have much lower incomes, urban women in South Africa have fully caught up with black American women in the prevalence of obesity, and are catching up in terms of hypertension. These women have the misfortune to be experiencing many of the diseases of affluence without experiencing affluence itself. |
| Date: | 2006–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pri:cheawb:234&r=afr |
| By: | UNICEF |
| Abstract: | The research theme was identified within the framework of the European Network for the Research Agenda on Children in Armed Conflict and has been developed by UNICEF IRC with the co-operation of a number of Network partners and UNICEF offices in the field. It reviews the problem of non-registration in conflict-affected countries while drawing on case studies to analyze successful or promising initiatives to ensure registration. The ultimate goal is to assist practitioners in the field in conflict and post-conflict environments to promote emerging encouraging practices in ensuring the right of the child to birth registration and thereby to the enjoyment of many rights. |
| Keywords: | armed conflicts; civil war; conflicts; convention on the rights of the child;; Afghanistan; Angola; Central Africa; Colombia; Ethiopia; Guatamala; Guinea; Palestine; Sri Lanka; West Africa; |
| JEL: | I30 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:innins:innins07/28&r=afr |
| By: | Fekadu Beyene (Humboldt University of Berlin, Institute of Agricultural Economics and Social Sciences Division of Resource Economics, Luisenstr. 56, 10099, Berlin) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines interethnic conflict on grazing land previously accessed as common property. The study was undertaken in Mieso District of eastern Ethiopia where two ethnic groups experience different production systems – pastoral and agropastoral. Game theoretic approach and analytic narratives have been used as analytical tools. Results show that the historical change in land use by one of the ethnic groups, resource scarcity, violation of customary norms, power asymmetry and livestock raids are some of the factors that have contributed to the recurrence of the conflict. The role of raids in triggering conflict and restricting access to grazing area becomes particularly important. Socio-economic and political factors are responsible for power asymmetry and increasing scale of raids. The joint effect of an increase in trend of violence and a decline in capacity of customary authority in conflict management advances state role in establishing enforceable property rights institutions. This would be successful only if policies and intervention efforts are redirected at: 1) suppressing incentives for violence, 2) establishing new institutional structures, in consultation with clan elders of both parties and 3) building internal capacity to monitor conflict-escalating events. |
| Keywords: | Property rights, conflict, grazing land, power asymmetry, access rights, customary institutions, Mieso, Ethiopia, Africa |
| JEL: | O17 Z13 Q15 |
| Date: | 2007–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hah:icardp:1707&r=afr |
| By: | Kati Schindler |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the use of informal credit as a strategy to cope with risk by market women in the city of Tamale, northern Ghana. Based on qualitative research techniques, the analysis reveals that the intra-household structure determines these market-based coping strategies. Market women invest a considerable amount of time in maintaining complex credit networks to insure against a loss of trading capital and labor. As a policy implication, this research suggests providing market women with access to formal, reliable and long-term microfinance, both to minimize their exposure to risks and to enhance their ability to cope with risks. |
| Keywords: | Africa, Ghana, informal finance, coping strategies, intra-household allocation, women |
| JEL: | O12 O17 D13 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp715&r=afr |
| By: | Norbert Wilson; Joyce Cacho |
| Abstract: | Through empirical analysis and case studies, this document explores the relationships amongst foreign direct investment (FDI), trade and trade-related policies in OECD and four African countries (Ghana, Mozambique, Tunisia and Uganda). In OECD countries, tariffs and market price support may have an effect on how FDI is distributed geographically. FDI may be used to avoid or "jump" tariffs. Also, investors in a home country may invest in a host country to exploit the preferential tariffs that the host has with a third country. Participation in a regional trading agreement or customs union, e.g. NAFTA or the EU, may create investment opportunities. Market price support to agriculture may encourage outward investment and discourage inward investment. In aggregate, FDI and trade appear to complement one another. The four case studies in Africa highlight the interactions amongst regulations, foreign investment and trade. For example, FDI is useful in helping the firm develop the resources to meet the standards of OECD markets. Investment promotion agencies and export processing zones appear to prepare countries to attract FDI. Preferential trading agreements like the Everything but Arms with EU and the African Growth Opportunity Act with the US may have an impact on trade and investment. Beyond trade policies, other policies and factors contribute substantially to the location and distribution of FDI. As seen amongst OECD countries, factors like the GDP of a country (i.e. market size) and cost of production and transport can have an effect on FDI. Another factor that influences FDI is the degree of market competitiveness. For the four African countries, the country risk and the level of infrastructure can influence the volume of FDI attracted. |
| Keywords: | academic libraries |
| Date: | 2007–03–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:50-en&r=afr |
| By: | John Serieux (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Economics, University of Manitoba); Terry McKinley (International Poverty Centre) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | ODA, HIV, AIDS |
| Date: | 2007–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:29&r=afr |
| By: | Antonio Estache; Beatriz Tovar; Lourdes Trujillo (Department of Economics, City University, London and DAEA, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) |
| Abstract: | This paper is a first attempt at documenting economic efficiency levels in Africa’s electricity distribution, their evolution and the sources of this evolution. The analysis is based on a sample of 12 operators providing services in the 12 countries members of the Southern Africa Power Pool. We focus on the changes in total factor productivity (TFP) of the largest operators in each country between 1998 and 2005. We then rely on a DEA decomposition to identify the sources of the changes in TFP. The results suggest fairly comparable levels of efficiency in the region and performance levels and evolution quite independent of the degree of vertical integration, the presence of a private actor or the main sources of energy supply. The analysis suggest that although the companies have not made significant improvements during the period of analysis in using their capital and human assets, they have done much better in adopting better technologies and better commercial practices. No clear correlation could be associated with the adoption of reforms during the last decade and data limitations impede a more refined assessment of the impact of reforms on efficiency at this stage. |
| Keywords: | Malmquist productivity, electricity, efficiency |
| Date: | 2007–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cty:dpaper:0713&r=afr |
| By: | Elizabeth Asiedu (Department of Economics, The University of Kansas); Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong (Department of Economics, University of South Florida) |
| Abstract: | There has been a remarkable shift in the attitudes towards globalization. Specifically, the discussion among academics and policymakers has shifted from whether globalization should be encouraged to how countries can position themselves to benefit from globalization. This paper focuses on one aspect of globalization – the liberalization of investment policies – and analyzes its impact on employment and investments by multinational corporations in Africa. We use data for 33 countries over the period 1984-2003 and we employ a dynamic panel estimator for our analysis. There are two major findings. First, liberalization has a significant and positive effect on investment. Second, liberalization does not have a direct impact on multinational employment – the effect is indirect: liberalization stimulates multinational investments which in turn increases multinational employment. By increasing investment and employment from multinational firms, these liberalization programs contribute to poverty alleviation. |
| Keywords: | Africa, employment, foreign direct investment, U.S. multinationals. |
| JEL: | F23 O55 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kan:wpaper:200702&r=afr |
| By: | Hyun H. Son (International Poverty Centre); Nanak Kakwani (International Poverty Centre) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | Poverty, Social Pensions, Kenya |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:25&r=afr |
| By: | KIMURA Hidemi; SAWADA Yasuyuki; MORI Yuko |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we examine whether aid proliferation hinders aid effectiveness in promoting economic growth. We employ a wide variety of specifications of the standard aid-growth regression using Roodman's (2007a) dataset. Specifically, we include a donor-concentration index as a proxy for donor proliferation and the interaction term between aid and a donor-concentration index as additional independent variables. Our best empirical results are in favor of a hypothesis that aid proliferation involves a negative effect on economic growth of the recipient countries with proper correction for possible biases arising from omitted variable and endogeneity problems. |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eti:dpaper:07044&r=afr |
| By: | David Goldsbrough (David Goldsbrough, Visiting Fellow, Center for Global Development (CGD)) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | Poverty, IMF, AID, MDG |
| Date: | 2007–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:35&r=afr |
| By: | Balogun, Emmanuel Dele |
| Abstract: | This study examined the monetary and macroeconomic stability perspective for entering into monetary union, using data available on WAMZ countries. It tests the hypothesis that independent monetary and exchange rate policies have been relatively ineffective in influencing domestic activities (especially GDP and inflation), and that when they do, they are counter productive. Usiing econometric methods, regression result show that, erstwhile domestic monetary policy, as captured by money supply and credit to government hurt real domestic output of these countries. Indeed, rather than promote growth, it was a source of stagnation. It also confirms that there appear to be a two quarters lag in monetary policy transmission effect with regard to real sector output. The results also show that although expansion in domestic output dampened aggregate consumer prices (inflation), it was however, not adequate enough to dampen the fuelling effects of past inflation. This was accentuated by money supply variable (MS2) and aggravated by exchange rate variable which are mostly positive, confirming the a priori expectations that rapid monetary expansion and devaluations fuels domestic inflation. A country by country comparison of the single and simultaneous equations model results show that expansionary monetary policy contributed more to fuelling prices than it did to growth. It also shows that interest rates policy had adverse effects on GDP by exhibiting a positive sign contrary to the theoretical expectation of an inverse relationship. The results also show that exchange rate devaluations manifest mainly in domestic inflation and have no effect at all on the growth variable, in the short term. The study concludes that these countries would be better-off to surrender its independence over these policy instruments to the planned regional body under appropriate monetary union arrangements. |
| Keywords: | International Monetary Economics; Econometric studies |
| JEL: | E5 F42 |
| Date: | 2007–07–31 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:4308&r=afr |
| By: | Elizabeth Asiedu (Department of Economics, The University of Kansas); Boaz Nandwa (Economic Growth Center, Yale University) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines whether foreign aid in education has a significant effect on growth. We take into consideration the heterogeneous nature of aid as well as the heterogeneity of aid recipients—we disaggregate the aid data into primary, secondary and higher education, and run separate regressions for low income and middle income countries. We find that the effect of aid varies by income as well as by the type of aid. Thus our results underscore the importance of the heterogeneity of aid flows as well as the heterogeneity of recipient countries when analyzing the effect of aid on growth. |
| Keywords: | Education, Foreign Aid, Growth. |
| JEL: | F34 F35 I20 O19 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kan:wpaper:200701&r=afr |
| By: | Degol Hailu (UNDP SURF) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | Khat, Controversy, Answer, Global trade, Ethiopia |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:40&r=afr |
| By: | Kojo Appiah-Kubi; Edward Amanning-Ampomah; Christian Ahortor |
| Abstract: | The paper studies the multidimensional aspects of poverty and living conditions in Ghana. The aim is to fill the vacuum that has been left by traditional uni-dimensional measures of deprivation based on poverty lines, exclusively estimated on the basis of monetary variables such as income or consumption expenditure. It combines monetary and non-monetary, and qualitative and quantitative indicators, including housing conditions, the possession of durable goods, equivalent disposable income, and equivalent expenditure, with a number of composite human welfare measures. The study employs the fuzzy-set theoretic framework to compare levels of deprivation in Ghana over time usig micro data from the last two rounds of the Ghana Living Standard Surveys (1991/1992 and 1998/1999). The estimation results of the membership functions, depicting the levels of deprivation for the various categories of deprivation indicators, show a composite deprivation degree of 0.2137 for the whole country in 1998/99 as compared to 0.2123 in 1991/92. This deprivation trend reveals that poverty levels hard scarcely changed in Ghana. In fact, it even rose slightly during the nineties, contrary to the uni-dimensional analytical GLSS 4 report of an overall broadly favourable trend in poverty in Ghana during the 1990s. |
| Keywords: | Ghana, fuzzy set, multi-dimensional poverty, composite deprivation or poverty index |
| JEL: | A1 A2 A23 A29 I3 I32 I38 I39 R2 R21 R22 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lvl:pmmacr:2007-21&r=afr |
| By: | UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre |
| Keywords: | aids; child care; child headed families; child protection; hiv; right to appropriate standards of care; right to care and protection; right to parental care;; Global; |
| JEL: | I19 |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ucf:innins:innins06/27&r=afr |
| By: | Eduardo Zepeda (International Poverty Centre) |
| Abstract: | . |
| Keywords: | Job creation, Cash trasnfers, Keny, Poverty, International Poverty Centre |
| Date: | 2007–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ipc:opager:41&r=afr |
| By: | Alberto Behar; James Hodge |
| Abstract: | An industry in decline provides an appropriate setting for the theory that mergers and acquisitions destroy implicit contracts and allow for the shedding of excess labour. We test this theory using provincial data from the South African gold mining industry, which has been in decline over the last two decades. Our data clearly portray rises in real wages and falling employment after the end of apartheid and our econometric results are remarkably consistent with standard labour demand theory. We find evidence of a significant negative effect of mergers/acquisitions on employment of a magnitude similar to that found for Continental Europe. This supports the view that negative employment effects are more likely in rigid labour markets. |
| Keywords: | Labour Demand, Mergers, Gold Industry |
| JEL: | G34 J23 L72 |
| Date: | 2007 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oxf:wpaper:335&r=afr |
| By: | Romain Aeberhardt (CREST-INSEE); Denis Fougère (CNRS, CREST-INSEE, CEPR and IZA); Julien Pouget (CREST-INSEE and IZA); Roland Rathelot (CREST-INSEE) |
| Abstract: | Our study proposes an econometric decomposition of the wage gap and of the difference in employment probabilities between French workers whose both parents had French citizenship at birth and French workers whose at least one parent had the citizenship of an African country at birth. For that purpose, we use data coming from the Formation Qualification Professionnelle (FQP) survey conducted by INSEE (Paris) in 2003. Our study is the first to estimate both employment and wage differentials between "native" French workers and children of African migrants. We find that one half of the employment gap and one third of the wage gap is not explained by differences in observable covariates between the two groups. This result is obtained by using a new method yielding more precise results when the sample size of the potentially discriminated group is small. |
| Keywords: | discrimination, wage differentials, second-generation migrants |
| JEL: | C24 J31 J71 |
| Date: | 2007–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp2898&r=afr |
| By: | Norbert Wilson; Joyce Cacho |
| Abstract: | À travers une analyse empirique et des études de cas, ce document examine la relation entre l'investissement direct étranger (IDE), les échanges et les politiques liées au commerce dans les pays de l'OCDE et dans quatre pays d'Afrique (Ghana, Mozambique, Tunisie et Ouganda). Dans les pays de l'OCDE, les droits de douane et les mesures de soutien du marché peuvent avoir des retombées importantes sur la répartition géographique de l?IDE. L?IDE peut aussi constituer un moyen d?éviter ou de contourner les droits de douane. Les entreprises d'un pays peuvent également investir dans un autre pays pour profiter des préférences tarifaires dont ce deuxième pays bénéficie auprès d?un troisième pays. La participation à un accord régional de libre-échange ou à une union douanière, comme l'ALENA ou l'UE, ouvre généralement des possibilités d'investissement. Les mesures de soutien des prix du marché agricole peuvent encourager l'investissement sortant et décourager l'investissement entrant. Globalement, l'IDE et les échanges semblent se compléter l'un l'autre. Les quatre études de cas effectuées en Afrique mettent en évidence les interactions entre la réglementation, l'investissement étranger et les échanges. L'IDE peut par exemple aider les entreprises à se donner les moyens de satisfaire aux normes des marchés des pays de l'OCDE. La mise en place d'organismes de promotion des investissements et la création de zones franches pour l'industrie d'exportation semblent constituer des phases préparatoires qui apprennent aux pays à attirer l'IDE. Les accords commerciaux préférentiels, tels que l'initiative « Tout sauf les armes » de l'UE ou l'African Growth Opportunity Act des États-Unis, peuvent avoir un impact sur les échanges et l'investissement. Outre les politiques commerciales, divers politiques et facteurs influent largement sur la localisation et la répartition de l'IDE. Comme le montre l'expérience des pays de l'OCDE, les facteurs tels que le PIB d’un pays (autrement dit la taille de son marché) joue à cet égard un rôle important, de même que les coûts de production et de transport. Une autre considération qui entre en ligne de compte est l'intensité de la concurrence sur le marché visé. Dans les quatre pays d'Afrique étudiés, le risque pays et le niveau d'infrastructure peuvent influer sur le volume d'IDE attiré. |
| Date: | 2007–03–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:traaab:50-fr&r=afr |