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on Africa |
| By: | Burlando, Alfredo ; Cristea, Anca D. ; Lee, Logan M. |
| Abstract: | In the past decade, pirates from Somalia have carried out thousands of attacks on cargo ships sailing through the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, causing what others have identified as significant damage to maritime trade. In this paper, we use variations in the spread and intensity of Somali piracy to estimate its effect on the volume of international trade. By comparing trade volume changes along shipping routes located in pirate waters to those that are not, we estimate that Somali piracy reduced bilateral trade passing through the Gulf of Aden by 1.7-1.9 percent per year from 2000 to 2010. In addition, we find larger reductions for trade in bulk commodities, which are generally shipped by sea and are more likely to fall prey to piracy attacks. While our estimates suggest that the trade costs of piracy are much lower than what has been suggested in the existing literature, we find that they remain significant and unevenly distributed, with five countries and the European Union shouldering 70% of the total costs. |
| Keywords: | Bulk Trade; Gravity equations; International Trade; Maritime Piracy; Somali Pirates; Trade shocks; Transportation |
| JEL: | F1 F14 R4 |
| Date: | 2014–10–24 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:61934&r=afr |
| By: | Iritie, Jean-Jacques |
| Abstract: | From the economic literature on the relationship between economic growth and environment pioneered by Grossman and Krueger (1991) and Shafik and Bandyopadhyay (1992) we first conduct a theoretical and critical reflection on the existence of a Kuznets curve for biodiversity. It appears that results are strongly contrasted. Then, we focus on the main biodiver- sity conservation policies implemented in Africa, i.e. protected areas and we discuss its effectiveness in achieving the dual objective of conservation and economic development for local communities. |
| Keywords: | Economic growth; environmental Kuznets curve; biodiversity conservations policies; proteced areas; Africa |
| JEL: | Q01 Q50 Q57 |
| Date: | 2015–02–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:62005&r=afr |
| By: | Campos, Francisco ; Goldstein, Markus ; McKenzie, David |
| Abstract: | Despite regulatory efforts designed to make it easier for firms to formalize, informality remains extremely high among firms in Sub-Saharan Africa. In most of the region, business registration in a national registry is separate from tax registration. This paper provides initial results from an experiment in Malawi that randomly allocated firms into a control group and three treatment groups: a) a group offered assistance for costless business registration; b) a group offered assistance with costless business registration and (separate) tax registration; and c) a group offered assistance for costless business registration along with an information session at a bank that ended with the offer of business bank accounts. The study finds that all three treatments had extremely large impacts on business registration, with 75 percent of those offered assistance receiving a business registration certificate. The findings offer a cost-effective way of getting firms to formalize in this dimension. However, in common with other studies, information and assistance has a limited impact on tax registration. The paper measures the short-term impacts of formalization on financial access and usage. Business registration alone has no impact for either men or women on bank account usage, savings, or credit. However, the combination of formalization assistance and the bank information session results in significant impacts on having a business bank account, financial practices, savings, and use of complementary financial products. |
| Keywords: | Business in Development,Competitiveness and Competition Policy,Business Environment,E-Business,Access to Finance |
| Date: | 2015–01–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7183&r=afr |
| By: | de Nicola, Francesca |
| Abstract: | Farmers in developing countries face a wide array of risks. Yet they often lack formal financial instruments to protect against risks. This paper examines the impact on consumption, investment, and welfare of the separate provision of three financial products: weather insurance, savings, and credit. The paper develops a dynamic stochastic mode to capture the essential features of the lives of West African rural households. The model is calibrated with data from farmers in Burkina Faso and Senegal, to assess quantitatively the effects of three policy interventions. For each intervention the analysis first considers a benchmark scenario that abstracts from the flaws that affect each instrument; later the assumptions are relaxed. Weather insurance offers the largest welfare gains at each level of wealth, although the gains are significantly reduced by introducing a multiple on the insurance premium. Over time, however, savings can lead to substantial gains, higher than those achievable by unsubsidized weather insurance. |
| Keywords: | Debt Markets,Climate Change Economics,Economic Theory&Research,Financial Intermediation,Banks&Banking Reform |
| Date: | 2015–02–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:7187&r=afr |
| By: | Martin, Frederic ; Calkins, Peter H. ; Lariviere, Sylvain |
| Keywords: | International Development, Political Economy, Production Economics, Public Economics, |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:iaaeo6:197879&r=afr |
| By: | Nyasha Mahonye and Leonard Mandishara |
| Abstract: | The study investigates the role of mineral resources in economic development and sees how the extractive sector impacts the overall performance of the economy of a country endowed with a diverse minerals and metals. We analyzed the economic growth model using human capital, population growth, property rights, and political rights, share of mineral exports to total exports, real growth of mining, real growth of agriculture, real growth of manufacturing and growth in foreign direct investments for the period 1970 - 2008. In addition, the study employed the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) since it is the widely used model in the field of study. The empirical results showed that real manufacturing growth, real mining growth, share of mineral exports to total exports, property rights and political rights are important determinants of economic growth. Of major importance the study accepts the hypothesis of the presence of a resource curse in Zimbabwe. Actually for the period under review the study could not reject the hypothesis that mineral resources have a negative impact on growth using both variables used to proxy resource abundance. The policy makers therefore ought to improve the management of mineral resources to realize economic gains from these endowments. Keywords: Mineral resources, institutions, economic growth and OLS estimation. JEL classification: Q5 |
| Keywords: | Mineral resources, institutions, economic growth and OLS estimation |
| JEL: | Q5 |
| Date: | 2015 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rza:wpaper:499&r=afr |
| By: | Clementi, Fabio ; Dabalen, Andrew L. ; Molini, Vasco ; Schettino, Francesco |
| Abstract: | Our hypothesis is that Nigeria is going through a process of economic polarization. An analysis of this type is new for Nigeria; the limited availability of comparable data has hindered an investigation that requires data series not too close in time. The |
| Keywords: | Nigeria, consumption expenditure, inequality, polarization, relative distribution |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-149&r=afr |
| By: | Bhorat, Haroon ; Cassim, Aalia ; Hirsch, Alan |
| Abstract: | South Africa has exhibited tepid economic growth over the past twenty years as well as high levels of income inequality characteristic of a middle income country growth trap. This paper compares and contrasts South Africa.s growth trap relative to middle |
| Keywords: | South Africa, growth trap, middle income country, policy co-ordination, industrial policy |
| Date: | 2014 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2014-155&r=afr |
| By: | Uchenna EFOBI (Association of African Young Economists ); Akinola OLABANJI (University of Guelph ); Motunrayo OSHIKOMAYA (Covenant University ) |
| Abstract: | Using detailed micro data that measures the deviant behaviors of workers in the business outfit of a Nigerian university, the extent to which these behaviors were influenced by some specific instruments that informs the policy stance of the management of the business outfit, was examined in this paper. The logistic regression technique was applied in testing the empirical model that was informed by the Trevino (1986) ‘interactionist’ model. The policy instrument of moral development, job context and tenure of the worker should be applied with succinct concentration on the deviant behaviour in focus. In essence, one cap does not fit all: implying that adequate consideration should be given to the deviant behaviour being focused on and as such, the applicability of the policy instrument should be observed. |
| Keywords: | Agents, Deviant Behavior, Nigeria, Small Businesses, University |
| JEL: | D1 H3 |
| Date: | 2015–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aay:wpaper:15_028&r=afr |
| By: | Sandjong Tomi, Diderot Guy D'Estaing |
| Abstract: | This article examines the long run relationship and the causality between the growth of GDP per capita and FDI in WAEMU countries. Thereafter, it measures the impact of FDI on Total Factor of Productivity (TFP) in the short and long run, for different values of the depreciation of capital stock. Using observation between 1970 and 2012, the econometric analysis provides three key results. First, there is a strong evidence of long run relationship between the growth of GDP per capita and the ratio of FDI inflows. Second, there is bidirectional causality between these two variables. Third, there is a positive and significant effect of FDI on TFP in the long run, conditional on low level of depreciation of capital stock. Therefore, for policy implications, WAEMU countries should intensify their investment in education and health in order to boost the quality of human capital stock and sufficient absorptive capacity necessary to acquire technological transfer from FDI. They should also strengthen their openness, to attract FDI inflows, and invest in infrastructure to better control the depreciation of physical capital stock. |
| Keywords: | FDI, Economic growth, structural transformations, WAEMU |
| JEL: | E65 R11 |
| Date: | 2015–02–17 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:62230&r=afr |