Working Paper
The African Lions
This paper mainly analyses the drivers of economic growth in Kenya and the linkages to the labour market dynamics, with a focus on population growth, its structure, and the prospects of reaping a demographic dividend. This is in recognition that...
Working Paper
Informality, Growth, and Development in Africa
The informal sector makes up an overwhelming share of both gross domestic product and total employment in Africa. In this paper, we lay out some of the basic characteristics of the informal sector in sub-Saharan Africa, relevant institutions, and...
Journal Article
Structural Transformation, Biased Technological Change and Employment in Vietnam
Employment in Vietnam and elsewhere in Asia has grown more slowly than GDP over the last several decades. This means GDP per capita is rising. Vietnamese policymakers, however, are concerned that ongoing structural transformation is creating too few...
Working Paper
Labour Standards in Exports and Developing Countries
This paper investigates the impact labour regulation, as defined by labour standards, have on the international trade regime. After providing a description of the debate's landscape, the paper focuses on the questions: Could the adoption of a...
Working Paper
Identifying monetary policy rules in South Africa with inflation expectations and unemployment
This paper investigates whether a Taylor rule accurately describes the South African Reserve Bank’s reaction function in setting interest rates using quarterly data, covering the period since inflation targeting was formally adopted in 2000. The...
Book Chapter
Informality, Growth and Development in Africa
From the book: Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics, Vol. 1.
Working Paper
Informal freelancers in the time of COVID-19
Despite the severe negative economic shock associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, evidence from many contexts points to a surge in sales on online platforms, as well as shifts in the composition of demand. This paper investigates how the pandemic has...
Journal Article
How Fast Do Banks Adjust?
This paper deals with a dynamic adjustment process in which adjustment of a key variable input (labor) towards its desired level is modeled in a panel data context. The partial adjustment type model is extended to make the adjustment parameter both...
Working Paper
Aid, Employment, and Poverty Reduction in Africa
Growth and poverty reduction in Africa are weakly linked. This paper argues that the reason is that Africa has failed to create enough good jobs. Structural transformation―the relative growth of employment in high productivity sectors―has not...
Working Paper
Using legal empowerment for labour rights in India
This paper brings labour back into the literature on legal empowerment against poverty. Employing a historical lens, I outline three waves of legal movements. Each wave is distinguished by its timing, the state-level target, and the actors involved...
Working Paper
Effect of the Liberalization of Investment Policies on Employment and Investment of Multinational Corporations in Africa
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...
Working Paper
Post-Apartheid South Africa
South Africa’s transition to democracy in 1994 created new possibilities for economic policy. Economic liberalization brought sustained, if unspectacular, growth that reversed the long decline in per capita incomes, but left its scars in much job...
Annual Lecture
Global Labour Standards and Local Freedoms
Kaushik Basu is known for the expert way in which he brings the tools of economic and philosophical analysis to bear on current development issues. In recent years his interests have included questions concerned with international labour standards...
Book
Gender and Development in the Arab World - Women's Economic Participation
This volume aims at remedying the relative dearth of studies addressing issues of women and development in Arab countries. One major concern of its authors is to improve the statistical information available by including the often omitted aspect of...
Book
Gender and Development in the Arab World - Women's Economic Participation
This volume aims at remedying the relative dearth of studies addressing issues of women and development in Arab countries. One major concern of its authors is to improve the statistical information available by including the often omitted aspect of...
Working Paper
Who demands labour (de)regulation in the developing world?
Contrary to the predictions of the insider–outsider model, we show that the large majority of outsiders in developing countries support, rather than oppose, protective labour regulations. This evidence holds across countries in different regions...
Working Paper
Southern Engines of Global Growth
This article views the four economies of the South in a long run historical perspective of 1500-2000. It contrasts the history and the initial endowments of the two Northern hemisphere economies China and India which are land scarce and labour...
Working Paper
Job flows, worker flows, and churning in South Africa
In this paper, worker and job flows are estimated using the IRP5 data from the South African Revenue Services. The data used in this paper is from the 2011–14 tax years and contains information on more than 12 million individuals and nearly 300,000...