Research Brief
A colonial legacy?
The presence of European colonial powers in Africa has left a long-lasting legacy that has severely impacted their development trajectories. But what are the lingering effects of colonization on economic performance, in particular with regard to...
Journal Article
Introducing carbon taxes in South Africa
South Africa is considering introducing a carbon tax to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Following a discussion of the motivations for considering a carbon tax, we evaluate potential impacts using a dynamic economywide model linked to an energy...
Working Paper
Spatial and temporal multidimensional poverty in Nigeria
Nigeria has recorded impressive growth in the last decade, yet the impact of this growth on poverty reduction remains unclear. This paper appraises spatial and temporal non-monetary multidimensional poverty in Nigeria using the first-order dominance...
Working Paper
Mozambique
Since 1994, a great deal has been accomplished. We argue that poverty reduction was temporarily sidelined in the 2000s. A series of shocks, especially the fuel and food price crisis of 2008, combined with poor productivity growth in agriculture and a...
Working Paper
Inequality of Opportunity in Educational Achievements
This paper evaluates fairness in educational achievements through the ordered pair (WEEOp, IEOp) whose components provide: (i) A measure of social welfare which accounts for the achievement of less-advantaged pupils and (ii) a synthetic index of...
Policy Brief
The Global Impact of the Southern Engines of Growth
This Policy Brief focuses on links between the developing countries of Brazil, India, China and South Africa and the global economy, with a special emphasis on the implications of China’s spectacular growth on developing economies and the rest of the...
Research Brief
The political economy of food price policy in Egypt
The Egyptian food system has been affected by both global food markets and domestic factors. During the recent global food price crisis, an estimated 30–40 percent of the price fluctuations in the global food market were transmitted to Egypt’s food...
Journal Article
First Order Dominance Analysis
This paper performs a multidimensional first order dominance analysis of child wellbeing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This methodology allows the ordinal ranking of the 11 provinces of the DRC in terms of their wellbeing based upon the...
Working Paper
Ethnic Heterogeneity and Public Goods Provision in Zambia
The hypothesis that ethnic diversity has a negative impact on public goods provision is widely accepted. Notably, most work on this issue fails to distinguish adequately between national versus subnational governance. We find that subnational...
Working Paper
Social Transfers and Growth
The effects of social transfers on growth are still unclear. The limitations of aggregated data at sub-national levels have confined the analysis to the use of simulation models and household surveys. As an alternative, this paper contributes to the...
Working Paper
First Order Dominance Analysis
This paper performs a multidimensional first order dominance (FOD) analysis of child wellbeing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This methodology allows the ordinal ranking of the 11 provinces of the DRC in terms of their wellbeing based...
Working Paper
Promoting Education within the Context of a Neo-Patrimonial State
In the first two or three decades of independence, Nigeria, like the rest of Africa. placed heavy emphasis on expanding educational opportunities from primary school through university. This has resulted in a very impressive increase in the number of...
Working Paper
Welfare Changes in China during the Economic Reforms
The study examines welfare changes in China during the reform period (1978- ) by analysing various welfare indicators, the causes of change, and the shifting models. It provides an empirical case to the general debate over the relationship between...
Working Paper
The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes on Household Work Decisions in Ghana
A cash transfer programme ‘Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty’ has been implemented with the aim of addressing poverty and vulnerability in Ghana. This study looks at the impact of this conditional cash transfer programme on households’ supply of...
Working Paper
Estimating multidimensional poverty in Zambia
In this paper, we apply the first-order dominance (FOD) approach to assessing multidimensional welfare to analyse multidimensional poverty in Zambia in 1996, 2006, and 2010. In addition to evaluating welfare across time and space, we extend the...
Working Paper
Estimating multidimensional childhood poverty in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2007 through 2013
After years of economic decline, conflict, and instability, the Democratic Republic of Congo achieved rapid economic growth in the 2000s along with a reduction in rural consumption poverty. This paper evaluates the extent to which recent growth has...