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on Africa |
| By: | Christine Dieterich; Anni Huang; Alun H. Thomas |
| Abstract: | As labor market data is scarce in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), this paper uses household survey data to analyze the determinants of the gender gap in the labor market and its welfare implications for five SSA countries in multinomial logit models with propensity score matching method. The analysis confirms that education opens up opportunities for women to escape agricultural feminization and engage in formal wage employment, but these opportunities diminish when women marry—a disadvantage increasingly relevant when countries develop and urbanization progresses. Opening a household enterprise offers women an alternative avenue to escape low-paid jobs in agriculture, but the increase in per capita income is lower than male-owned household enterprises. These findings underline that improving women’s education needs to be supported by measures to allow married women to keep their jobs in the wage sector. |
| Keywords: | Employment;Sub-Saharan Africa;Women;Gender;Informal sector;Labor markets;Agricultural sector;Education;Labor force participation;Unemployment;Multi-sector Labor Market, Agriculture Feminization, Female Informal Employment, Household Enterprise Employment, SSA Labor Market |
| Date: | 2016–06–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:16/118&r=afr |
| By: | Lanre Kassim |
| Abstract: | Despite the advent of trade liberalisation, trade taxes still remain a huge source of tax revenues in Sub-Saharan Africa. Further trade reforms in the form of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) could, however, hinder output growth in the region if these reforms lead to a decline in total tax revenues. Motivated by this conundrum, our paper adopts panel data estimators to investigate the impact of trade liberalisation on total tax revenue across 28 Sub-Saharan African countries from 1981 to 2010. We also analysed the impact of freer trade policies on trade and domestic tax revenues. The results indicate that trade liberalisation is associated with an increase in total tax revenues. Also, the reduction of trade tariffs significantly increases and decreases domestic and trade tax revenues, respectively. In addition, greater urbanisation is associated with an increase in total tax revenues while a higher inflation rate decreases tax revenues. |
| Keywords: | Trade liberalisation; Generalised method of moments; Fixed effects; Tax revenue; Sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | C23 F13 F14 H20 O55 |
| Date: | 2016–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1605&r=afr |
| By: | Michele Andreolli; Aidar Abdychev |
| Abstract: | This paper analyses a large public investment in a construction of a hydropower plant in Lesotho and its implications on the growth and debt sustainability. The paper employs an open economy dynamic general equilibrium model to assess the benefits of a large public investment through growth-enhancing increase in domestic energy supply and receipts from selling electricity abroad to ease the fiscal burden, which is often associated with big investment projects. During the transition (construction stage), various financing options are explored: increase in the public debt, increase in domestic revenue (fiscal adjustment), and combination. The calibration matches Lesotho's data and it captures the project's main challenges regarding the project costs. Moreover,the key remaining issue is the agreement with South Africa to purchase sufficient amount of electricity to allow the potential plant to run at a high capacity. We find that, the project can lead to sizable macroeconomic benefits as long as costs are relatively low and demand from South Africa is sufficiently high. However, the risks for the viability of the project are high, if these assumptions are violated. |
| Keywords: | Public investment;Lesotho;Electricity;Energy sector;Economic growth;Debt sustainability;Econometric models;Public Investment, Energy Production, Growth, Debt Sustainability, Fiscal Policy. |
| Date: | 2016–06–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:16/115&r=afr |
| By: | Peter Wanke (COPPEAD Graduate Business School, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro); Andrew Maredza (School of Economics and Decision Science, North West University, South Africa); Rangan Gupta (Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria) |
| Abstract: | Banking in South Africa is known for its small number of companies that operate as an oligopoly. This paper presents a strategic fit assessment of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in South African banks. A network DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) approach is adopted to compute the impact of contextual variables on several types of efficiency scores of the resulting virtual merged banks: global (merger), technical (learning), harmony (scope), and scale (size) efficiencies. The impact of contextual variables related to the origin of the bank and its type is tested by means of a set of several robust regressions to handle dependent variables bounded in 0 and 1: Tobit, Simplex, and Beta. The results reveal that bank type and origin impact virtual efficiency levels. However, the findings also show that harmony and scale effects are negligible due to the oligopolistic structure of banking in South Africa |
| Keywords: | Banks, South Africa, Merger and Acquisitions, Network, DEA, Robust Regression Analysis |
| JEL: | C6 G21 |
| Date: | 2016–09 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pre:wpaper:201665&r=afr |
| By: | Janet Gale Stotsky; Lisa L Kolovich; Suhaib Kebhaj |
| Abstract: | Gender budgeting is an initiative to use fiscal policy and administration to address gender inequality and women’s advancement. A large number of sub-Saharan African countries have adopted gender budgeting. Two countries that have achieved notable success in their efforts are Uganda and Rwanda, both of which have integrated gender-oriented goals into budget policies, programs, and processes in fundamental ways. Other countries have made more limited progress in introducing gender budgeting into their budget-making. Leadership by the ministry of finance is critical for enduring effects, although nongovernmental organizations and parliamentary bodies in sub-Saharan Africa play an essential role in advocating for gender budgeting. |
| Keywords: | Fiscal policy;Uganda;Rwanda;Sub-Saharan Africa;Gender;Budgeting;Women's social conditions;Women's economic conditions;Cross country analysis;fiscal policy and administration, gender inequality, sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2016–07–28 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:16/152&r=afr |