|
on Africa |
| By: | Mason, Nicole M.; Ricker-Gilbert, Jacob |
| Abstract: | Input subsidy programs that provide inorganic fertilizer and improved maize seed to small farmers below market rates are currently receiving a great deal of support as a sustainable strategy to foster an African Green Revolution. In recent years numerous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) including Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zambia have implemented such programs at substantial cost to government and donor budgets. For example, in 2008 Malawi spent roughly 70% of the Ministry of Agriculture’s budget or just over 16% of the government’s total budget subsidizing fertilizer and seed. In Zambia between 2004 and 2011, an average of 40% of the government’s agricultural sector budget was devoted to fertilizer and maize seed subsidies each year. |
| Keywords: | Malawi, Zambia, seed, input subsidies, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, |
| Date: | 2012–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:midcwp:123554&r=afr |
| By: | Smale, Melinda; Mason, Nicole |
| Abstract: | The successful development and diffusion of improved maize seed in Zambia during the 1970s–80s was a major achievement of African agriculture but was predicated on a government commitment to parastatal grain and seed marketing, the provision of services to maize growers, and a pan-territorial pricing scheme that was fiscally unsustainable. Declining maize output when this system was dismantled contributed to the reinstatement in 2002 of subsidies for maize seed and fertilizer through the Fertilizer and Farmer Input Support Programs (FISP). In the meantime, seed liberalization has led to an array of new, improved maize varieties, most of which are hybrids. This analysis explores the determinants of demand for first-generation (F1) hybrid maize seed in Zambia based on a survey of maize growers during the 2010/11 cropping season. We estimate the determinants of demand with a control function approach to handle the potential endogeneity of the binary variable measuring subsidy receipt and compare determinants of demand between female and male seed decisionmakers. We find that hybrid seed use in Zambia is still very much an "affair of state" in that farmers' use of F1 hybrids is explained largely by inclusion in FISP. The quality (literacy) of the labor supply, the ratio of active labor to dependents in the household, sources of information, and length of residence in the village are predictors of maize seed subsidy receipt. Overall, we find that male and female seed decisionmakers may represent distinct demand segments. The fact that the percentage of seed decisionmakers who are women is much higher than the percentage of women who are de jure or de facto household heads has implications for the design of extension strategies and variety promotion. |
| Keywords: | maize, Zambia, Africa, Africa South of Sahara, seed, fertilizer, hybrid, seed price, farmers, East Africa |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:harvwp:8&r=afr |
| By: | Diagne, Mandiaye; Abele, Steffen; Diagne, Aliou; Seck, Papa A. |
| Abstract: | Regionalism and food security is a relatively neglected topic with very limited literature. We use a Ricardian trade model with multiple goods and countries which embeds a structure of gravity equation and yield variability. Our study shows that integration with African markets of staple foods is associated with higher growth, underpinning the need for growth strategies to emphasize scaling up and diversifying exports within Africa. Africa needs to unlock its high potential untapped land and fill up the yield gap. We found as well that enhanced competitiveness and reduced barriers to trade are the two critical areas of action. |
| Keywords: | Ricardian model, yield variability, agricultural trade, staple foods, Africa, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, International Relations/Trade, |
| Date: | 2012–05–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae12:123842&r=afr |
| By: | Justine Burns; Malcolm Keswell (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the changes in the educational attainment of three successive generations in South Africa: grandparents, parents and children. Many of the results accord with widely known facts, such as the educational penalty faced by individuals who are African or who live in rural areas or in female-headed households. Similarly, the larger impact of mothers education on child outcomes relative to fathers education accords with previous work, although it is interesting that this gender difference is only sizeable and significant for relationships between the second and third generation. Key findings in this paper include the fact that persistence has increased with subsequent generations. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:71&r=afr |
| By: | Nicola Branson (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town); Julia Garlick; David Lam; Murray Leibbrandt (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town) |
| Abstract: | Following the international literature, income inequality decompositions on data from contemporary South Africa show that the labour market is the key driver of overall household inequality. In order to understand one of the channels driving this labour market inequality, we use national household survey data to review changing returns to education in the South African labour market over the last 15 years; with a focus on both the returns to getting employment as well as the earnings returns for those that have employment. We show that South Africa has experienced a skills twist with the returns to matric and post-secondary education rising and the returns to levels of education below this remaining constant. Then, based on a regression based decomposition of earnings inequality, we show how this has impacted earnings inequality. Indeed, the increase in returns to post-secondary education has directly counteracted the equalising gains that have been made by increased educational attainment, resulting in consistent levels of inequality over time. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:75&r=afr |
| By: | Mapila, Mariam A.T.J.; Kirsten, Johann F.; Meyer, Ferdinand H. |
| Abstract: | This study develops a multi-equation partial equilibrium model of the Malawi maize market which is linked sequentially to a local maize economy to show that the skepticism surrounding the use of innovation systems in agricultural research in Africa is not unfounded. The results demonstrate that participating households have the potential to be negatively affected by greater linkages with the market given policy shocks. Therefore in order for the innovation systems perspective in agricultural research to be effective in sustaining robust livelihoods in Africa and to ensure sustainable utilization of natural resources; interventions must be implemented only after systematic analysis of the potential consequences of the resultant macro-micro linkages; thus ensuring harmony between policies and micro-level livelihood strategies. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural policy modeling, Agricultural Innovation Systems, Macro-micro approach, Agricultural and Food Policy, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae12:123641&r=afr |
| By: | Smale, Melinda; Mason, Nicole M. |
| Abstract: | The successful development and diffusion of improved maize seed in Zambia during the 1970s–80s was a major achievement of African agriculture but was predicated on a government commitment to parastatal grain and seed marketing, the provision of services to maize growers, and a pan-territorial pricing scheme that was fiscally unsustainable. Declining maize output when this system was dismantled contributed to the reinstatement in 2002 of subsidies for maize seed and fertilizer through the Fertilizer and Farmer Input Support Programs (FISP). In the meantime, seed liberalization has led to an array of new, improved maize varieties, most of which are hybrids. This analysis explores the determinants of demand for first-generation (F1) hybrid maize seed in Zambia based on a survey of maize growers during the 2010/11 cropping season. |
| Keywords: | Zambia, Maize, seed subsidies, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:midcwp:123555&r=afr |
| By: | Allen, Summer L.; Qaim, Matin |
| Abstract: | National governments, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, have limited budgets and are forced to make difficult funding decisions regarding the provision of social services and the support of agricultural programs. These provisions can play a critical role in rural incomes and agricultural production but due to data constraints, the effects of different types of social services on agricultural productivity in this region have not been analyzed in detail. This research provides indication that certain types of social services can influence agricultural production efficiency using the currently available data and multiple empirical methods. Specifically, it estimates the role of social services in the efficiency of input use for agricultural production, using both Stochastic Frontier Analysis and a Structural Equation Model. Ultimately, our conclusions are substantially limited by data constraints, but provide some indication that certain types of social services can influence agricultural production efficiency for a select set of African countries |
| Keywords: | Cross-country studies, Stochastic, efficiency analysis, public expenditure, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1173&r=afr |
| By: | Droppelmann, Klaus; Makuwira, Jonathan; Kumwenda, Ian |
| Abstract: | Recently, there has been a resurgence of interest in the study of structural transformation. However, Africa has received little attention despite the fact that its rural areas seem to be very poor and unproductive relative to urban areas. This case study provides a reflection on challenges faced and development strategies adopted by successive governments in Malawi. Malawi is a country with a complex history of rural-urban transformation. On one hand, Malawi has long been, and still is, a predominantly agrarian economy that has seemingly undergone relatively little rural-urban transformation. Malawi is still predominantly rural, most migration is rural-to-rural, and its economic base is heavily dominated by the production of maize (largely for domestic consumption) and tobacco (largely for exports). In this paper we analyze the macroeconomic policy situation and document patterns and trends in Malawi's rural-urban transformation in a systematic manner. To that end, we focus on a number of dimensions of this transformation, including urban population growth, migration patterns, employment trends, and a spatial analysis of agglomerations and connectivity to major urban centers. We then turn to explain these patterns, largely in terms of colonial, post-independence, and more recent history of agricultural policies. We also examine migration patterns (both rural-urban and rural-rural), and constraints on the development of the nonfarm sector. In conclusion it becomes apparent that Malawi must diversify its economy to sustain poverty reduction and economic growth. However, it is not clear whether Malawi has an obvious comparative advantage in any sizeable nonfarm sector and how exactly the economic diversification process is to be achieved. |
| Keywords: | agglomeration, agricultural sector growth, Rural-urban transformation, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1177&r=afr |
| By: | Malcolm Keswell; Sarah Girdwood; Murray Leibbrandt |
| Abstract: | We analyse the role of educational opportunity in shaping inequality in the distribution of occupations in the long-run. We start by modelling the probability that a child occupies the same or a different rung on the occupational ladder as her parents controlling for both the educational attainment of the child, as well as the level of educational opportunity of the child. These conditional probabilities are then used to construct separate transition matrices by level of educational opportunity, race and gender, which in turn are used to the compute the steady-state distribution of occupations. Finally, we use the timing of political events in the history of the struggle to end Apartheid to devise an identification strategy that permits a causal interpretation of the role of educational opportunity. We find evidence that educational opportunity has a strong conditioning effect on the distribution of occupations in steady state. In particular, African female children who inherit the same level of educational opportunity as their parents are 9% more likely to be in the bottom of the occupation distribution in steady-state, than the observed rate for the population at large, whereas they would face a 4% lower probability if they were exposed to better educational opportunities. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:73&r=afr |
| By: | Bryceson, Deborah; Sarkar , Prabirjit; Fennel, Shailaja; Singh, Ajit |
| Abstract: | A major purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of poor governance or ‘state fragility’ in African countries on their overall economic and agrarian performance. The results of our econometric analysis show that a higher level of public security is conducive to lower levels of conflict, whether of an ethnic, religious and regional nature. It also corresponds with greater agricultural value-added per capita. The analysis further indicates that trade openness and aid do not have a substantial impact on agricultural development. Our institutional and historical examination of the structural adjustment programmes in African countries suggest that African agriculture’s poor performance is not necessarily due to the negative influence of African governments, but could also, in large part, be attributed to the policies advocated by the international financial institutions and donor countries. The resolution of the problems associated with these policies lies in improving the ability of African farmers to benefit from new agrarian technologies that raise staple food productivity and thereby enhance food security and national stability. The paper also provides, inter alia, a nuanced analytical description, based upon available aggregate statistics, of the short- and long-term performance of African economies and their agricultural sectors during the last 25 years. |
| Keywords: | African agriculture; Poor governance; State fragility; Donor policies |
| JEL: | Q1 O55 O15 O13 Q18 |
| Date: | 2010–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39053&r=afr |
| By: | G. d'Agostino; J.P Dunne (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town); L. Pieroni |
| Abstract: | This paper considers the effects of corruption and government spending on economic growth. It starts from an endogenous growth model and extends it to account for the detrimental effects of corruption on the potentially productive components of government spending, namely military and investment spending. The resulting model is estimated on a sample of African countries and the results show, first, that the growth rate is strongly influenced by the interaction between corruption and military burden, with the interaction between corruption and government investment expenditure having a weaker effect. Second, allowing for the cyclical economic fluctuations in specific countries leaves the estimated elasticities close to those of the full sample. Third, there are significant conditioning variables that need to be taken into account, namely the form of government, political instability and natural resource endowment. These illustrate the cross country heterogeneity when accounting for quantitative direct and indirect effects of key variables on economic growth. Overall, these findings suggest important policy implications. |
| Keywords: | corruption; military spending; development economics; panel data; Africa |
| JEL: | O57 H5 D73 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:74&r=afr |
| By: | Allen, Summer L.; Badiane, Ousmane; Ulimwengu, John M. |
| Abstract: | In an effort to inform strategic options to improve agricultural productivity, we examine the impact of social service expenditures on the marginal productivity of agricultural inputs. Increasing agricultural productivity is often advocated as a way to reduce poverty, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where many people still rely on agriculture as their main source of income. Unfortunately, limited national budgets are often focused on meeting short-term needs rather than on making longer-term, growth-enhancing investments in agriculture and rural areas. Using Tanzania as a case study, this research investigates the direct and indirect impacts of district-level health and education expenditures on marginal productivities of agricultural inputs through education and health outcomes. This approach uses recently-released data for Tanzania and health and education spending data as well as an innovative combination of approaches including a general covariance structure model and a mixed linear model to allow for district-level heterogeneity. Our results suggest a significant and nonlinear relationship between social outcomes and social expenditures and point to the importance of these outcomes in productivity. Marginal productivities of inputs are significant and confirm the validity of a heterogeneous technology approach. As expected, labor productivity, in particular, responds significantly to health and education outcomes. The findings also point to the importance of controlling for intra-country socioeconomic and agro-climatic heterogeneity. |
| Keywords: | marginal productivity, social expenditure, state variables, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1172&r=afr |
| By: | Kankwamba, Henry; Mangisoni, Julius; Simtowe, Franklin; Mausch, Kai; Siambi, Moses |
| Abstract: | The overall objective of this paper is to assess the demand for improved groundnut, bean, and soybean seed in central Malawi. Specifically, it examines how smallholder farmers respond to changes in market prices of improved legume seed. It also assesses factors that affect the decision to participate in improved seed technology transfer. Considering four commodities namely groundnuts, beans, soybeans and maize, a staple food, the paper estimates a multivariate probit and a linear approximate of the Almost Ideal Demand System (LA/AIDS) using cross section data collected by ICRISAT in 2010. Uncompensated price and expenditure elasticities are reported for the LA/AIDS model. The paper finds high own price elasticities in all four commodities considered. It also indicates that land, household size and education levels affect participation in improved technology. The results further reveal that improved groundnut seed has a substitutive relationship with soybeans. Groundnut and bean cross price elasticity showed an almost unitary relationship with groundnut but groundnut showed complementary relationship with maize seed. Beans showed a less than unitary substitutive relationship with soy and an elastic substitution with maize. Soybean had a substitutive relationship with all seed commodities in question. As pertain expenditure elasticities, farmers would increase expenditure on improved groundnut and beans if their incomes increased. The results also reveal that if farmers’ incomes increase they would reduce soybean’s expenditure share. The results generally show that farmers are very sensitive to changes in improved legume seed prices and incomes. |
| Keywords: | Legumes, Multivariate Probit, LA/AIDS, Malawi, Demand and Price Analysis, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaae12:123945&r=afr |
| By: | Fofana, Ismaël |
| Abstract: | The recent surge in oil prices has created concern about its impacts on poor people in South Africa. The strong economic performance recorded over the period 1995-05 has not contributed to a substantial reduction in poverty in this country, particularly among women that tend to be overrepresented among poor households. Government management of an oil shock is important in reducing its adverse impacts in oil-importing countries. Thus, this study examines alternative policy responses to the recent high oil prices through a gender lens in South Africa. A multisector general equilibrium framework is developed to account for the energy specificities of the economy and its relationship with nonenergy sectors. In addition, male and female supplies of labor and the households' demand for energy and nonenergy commodities are explored through a careful modeling of the household economy along with the market economy. The simulation scenarios combine increases in world prices of crude oil, petroleum products, and coal with various fiscal policy responses. Under the floating prices scenario, gross domestic product (GDP) falls compared to the baseline value driven by the inflationary effect of high energy prices and the exchange rate depreciation. Labor earnings also fall, while the gap between male and female earnings widens. The low participation of women compared to men in nonoil energy and export-oriented industries increases their vulnerability to the oil price shock. The gender employment gap also increases under the fixed petroleum price scenarios regardless of the tax-financing option. Further, fiscal policy responses are explored through the broadening of price supports to all commodities and all industries financed by an additional tax on household revenue. A government subsidy to businesses under the oil price shock shows the highest multiplier effect—higher GDP and labor earning effects—but the gap in male and female employment does not change significantly compared with that in the floating and set price scenarios. The government subsidy to businesses is decomposed by type of industry to further explore its gender employment impact. Simulation results indicate that the gender employment gap improves when the subsidy is allocated to high female-employing industries. On the other hand, providing a subsidy to industries that easily substitute capital–energy technology with low-skilled work gives the best GDP outcome. Therefore, this study shows that fiscal policy can help ensure equitable growth when an economy faces a serious challenge, such as a surge in world oil prices. This indicates that supporting industries that easily substitute the capital–energy factor and female-dominated, low-skilled work is the most efficient and gender-equitable fiscal response to high oil prices in South Africa. Given the small differences in GDP and employment results between the fiscal response scenarios with and without a focus on gender equity, the cost of investing in gender equality appears to be small. |
| Keywords: | petroleum, price shock, Gender, Fiscal policies, General equilibrium model, household economy, domestic work, time allocation, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1169&r=afr |
| By: | Masangano, Charles; Mthinda, Catherine |
| Abstract: | This descriptive study was undertaken in order to assess the status of extension services in Malawi 10 years after implementation of the pluralistic and demand-driven extension policy. The findings would help practitioners and policy makers in their efforts to strengthen the extension system and enable it to serve the smallholder farmers more effectively. A worldwide extension assessment mail-out questionnaire was administered to 37 agricultural extension service providers to collect quantitative data on primary organizational goals, functions, and resources, and the linkages of different extension organizations within an agricultural innovation systems framework. The findings indicate that there were many players in agricultural extension service delivery as a result of the pluralistic policy but the government extension service remained the largest in terms of staffing and spread. The primary focus for most organizations was to help smallholder farmers improve their livelihoods with special efforts to target women. Government extension service was characterized by limited resources, but many field staff with low qualifications. Most of the other extension organizations had limited staff concentrated at higher levels with no grassroots staff thereby depending on government extension staff to reach farmers. Strong institutional linkages existed at district levels and local agencies as well as with non-governmental organizations but there were weak linkages with education and research institutions. Among others, the study calls for more investments in the government extension system while strengthening coordination with the civil society organizations to effectively serve the needs of smallholder farmers in Malawi. |
| Keywords: | agricultural extension, extension organization, pluralistic extension policy, Smallholder farmers, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1171&r=afr |
| By: | Headey, Derek; Taffesse, Alemayehu Seyoum; You, Liangzhi |
| Abstract: | The most recent (2010-211) drought in the arid and semiarid lowlands (ASAL) of the Horn of Africa has rendered over 13 million people in need of food, and caused a devastating famine in southern Somalia. The drought has also raised concerns that pastoralist livelihoods in this region are no longer viable or sustainable, thereby justifying strategies that aim to sedentarize and diversify these livelihoods. Countering this view are advocates of wholesale protection of pastoralist livelihoods. Yet despite these very contrasting views on economic development in the region, very little research directly addresses this big picture question of where public resources should be invested. In this paper we argue that both economic theory and the existing evidence base warrant a more balanced development strategy involving movement out of pastoralism (intersectoral transformation), modernization of pastoralism (intrasectoral transformation), and cross-cutting transformations of the demographic, social, and political structure of ASAL populations. We then explore the empirical basis for balancing investments across these kinds of transformations. While the available evidence base is weak in some respects, we find that most nonpastoralist livelihoods in ASAL yield lower incomes than pastoralism, with the exception of urban livelihoods and irrigated farming. |
| Keywords: | Development strategies, Pastoralism, Resilience, |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1176&r=afr |
| By: | Justine Burns; Malcolm Keswell (SALDRU, School of Economics, University of Cape Town) |
| Abstract: | This paper utilises techniques in experimental economics to investigate the impact of racial identity on the provision of public goods. A large sample of Black and White undergraduate University students were recruited to participate in public goods games, where the racial composition of the groups was varied to include All White groups, All Black groups and mixed race groups (comprising Black and White students). The results show that contrary to predictions from social identity theory, racial homogeneity in a group does not uniformly predict higher contributions to the public pool. Rather, it would appear that observable racial identity may convey information about extensive heterogeneity as opposed to homogeneity, especially where race is highly correlated with diversity in other dimensions, such as ethnolinguistic diversity. In accordance with the established macroeconometric literature on the provision of public goods, the results presented in this study show that contributions to the public good are indeed increasing in the level of trust in a group, and declining in the extent of ethnolinguistic diversity and socio-economic need in the group. Moreover, while communication has a large and significant effect on contributions to the public pool, patterns of communication are a ected by the racial composition of the group, with Black students appearing to be more responsive to communications made by White colleagues as opposed to Black colleagues. Hence, communication is not effective at sustaining co-operation in racially homogenous Black groups, possibly because communication in these groups allows participants to verify the greater diversity on other dimensions amongst group members. |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ldr:wpaper:72&r=afr |
| By: | Fernando Aragon (Simon Fraser University); Juan Pablo Rud (Royal Holloway University of London) |
| Abstract: | Most modern mines in the developing world are located in rural areas, where agriculture is the main source of livelihood. This creates the potential of negative spillovers to farmers through competition for key inputs (such as land) and environmental pollution. To explore this issue, we examine the case of gold mining in Ghana. Through the estimation of an agricultural production function using household level data, we find that mining has reduced agricultural productivity by almost 40%. This result is driven by polluting mines, not by input availability. Because of its crowding out effects on agriculture, we find that the mining activity is associated with an increase in poverty, child malnutrition and respiratory diseases. A simple cost-benefit analysis shows that the fiscal contribution of mining would not have been enough to compensate affected populations. |
| Keywords: | Natural resources; Mining; Pollution |
| JEL: | O13 Q11 Q33 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:sfu:sfudps:dp12-08&r=afr |
| By: | Kazianga, Harounan (Oklahoma State University); Levy, Dan (Harvard Kennedy School); Linden, Leigh L. (University of Texas at Austin); Sloan, Matt (Mathematica Policy Research) |
| Abstract: | We evaluate the causal effects of a program that constructed high quality "girl-friendly" primary schools in Burkina Faso, using a regression discontinuity design 2.5 years after the program started. We find that the program increased enrollment of all children between the ages of 5 and 12 by 20 percentage points and increased their test scores by 0.45 standard deviations. The change in test scores for those children caused to attend school by the program is 2.2 standard deviations. We also find that the program was particularly effective for girls, increasing their enrollment rate by 5 percentage points more than boys', although this did not translate into a differential effect on test scores. Disentangling the effects of school access from the unique characteristics of the new schools, we find that the unique characteristics were responsible for a 13 percentage point increase in enrollment and 0.35 standard deviations in test scores, while simply providing a school increased enrollment by 26.5 percentage points and test scores by 0.323 standard deviations. The unique characteristics of the school account for the entire difference in the treatment effect by gender. |
| Keywords: | Africa, education, gender inequality, enrollment |
| JEL: | I24 I25 I28 O15 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6574&r=afr |
| By: | Mofya-Mukuka, Rhoda; Abdulai, Awudu |
| Abstract: | 1) Export diversification has long been at the centre of Zambia’s economic diversification policies. This article focuses on the coffee sector as a potentially important source of export diversification and examines its supply response to changes in various incentives. 2) Zambian coffee exhibits asymmetric short-run supply adjustments to long-run equilibrium such that production rises significantly after prices rise while changing little after prices fall. 3) The fact that coffee in Zambia is mainly grown for export, the changes in real exchange have the most significant effect on supply in that a depreciation in the Zambian Kwacha leads to an increase in coffee supply. |
| Keywords: | Zambia, coffee, export, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:midcpb:123556&r=afr |
| By: | Mas, Ignacio; Klein, Michael |
| Abstract: | Across the world mobile money schemes are being launched. In such schemes financial service providers interact with clients via mobile phones or other mobile devices such as tablets. Service offerings include payments and saving as well as basic insurance products and sometimes credit based on scoring methods that use information about the client’s payment history. The world of mobile money is still in the experimental stage. Some schemes like M-PESA in Kenya have, at least initially, been run-away successes. Some three quarters of all adults in Kenya signed up within little over four years after M-PESA was launched. Other schemes in Kenya and elsewhere have produced more modest results. Yet the promise of mobile financial services is sufficiently strong for currently over 200 mobile deployments counting just the cellphone based ones. Much experimentation is still needed to find the best business models. Hence room for such experimentation is desirable. At the same time policymakers and regulators need to be clear about possible ramifications of the mobile revolution for the design of financial regulation and its implementation. This note discusses several systemic issues that arise from mobile payment schemes: The impact of “e-money” on money supply, problems posed by financial distress of mobile money schemes, and the impact of mobile money schemes on money-laundering and illicit finance -- |
| JEL: | G21 G28 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:fsfmwp:188&r=afr |
| By: | Singh, C.; Bedi, A.S. |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that since 2005, the global security discourse has confused maritime piracy off the Horn of Africa with terrorism. American and European policymakers and financiers have tapped a vulnerable public imaginary to exaggerate Somali pirates as ‘maritime terrorists’ linked to Shabaab and Al Qaeda, driving the militarization and legal obfuscation of counter-piracy operations. The discursive conflation of piracy and terrorism has thereby launched a tactical and legal War on Piracy that mirrors the War on Terror. This approach is pushing pirates to become more daring and dangerous in response. We conclude that the tactical extension from counterterrorism to counter-piracy is unlikely to succeed, as it is insensitive to the origins, motives and modus operandi of Somali pirates. The paper proposes a shift from military to developmental responses to piracy, with an emphasis on respecting local institutions of law enforcement and governance in Somalia. |
| Keywords: | terrorism;Somalia;piracy |
| Date: | 2012–05–22 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:euriss:543&r=afr |
| By: | Azam, Jean-Paul |
| Date: | 2011 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:toulou:http://neeo.univ-tlse1.fr/3138/&r=afr |