Working Paper
Measuring consumption over the phone
The paucity of reliable, timely household consumption data in many low- and middle-income countries has made it difficult to assess how global poverty has evolved during the COVID-19 pandemic. Standard poverty measurement requires collecting...
Report
Myanmar Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises 2018 Qualitative Study
The purpose of this report is to give a nuanced picture of the SME business environment in Myanmar as a complement to the 2017 MSME quantitative survey conducted within the project ‘Towards Inclusive Development in Myanmar’. This project is a...
Working Paper
We need land first
The aim of this study is to identify needs for recovery from people’s perspectives under a localized context following the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. A qualitative approach was applied to collecting and processing data which consist of 114 semi...
Working Paper
A comparative study of export processing zones in the wake of the Sustainable Development Goals
The objective of this research is to assess the extent to which export processing zones in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe integrate the Sustainable Development Goals in their implementation and operations. We focused on four Sustainable...
Working Paper
Linked in by foreign direct investment
This study combines evidence from interviews in seven countries with (i) government institutions responsible for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), (ii) 102 multinational enterprises (MNEs), and (iii) 226 domestic firms linked to these...
Working Paper
Competing in the Digital Economy?
This paper explores the current state of play and likely future direction of business-to-business electronic commerce in the South African manufacturing sector. The empirical evidence presented draws on 120 firm-level interviews, and 31 personal...
Report
Characteristics of the Vietnamese business environment
This is the sixth time that the collaborative small and medium enterprise (SME) panel survey has been conducted among formal and informal manufacturing firms in Viet Nam. The results of previous survey rounds, those of 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, and...
Report
Characteristics of the Vietnamese Business Environment (in Vietnamese)
This report represents the seventh time that the small and medium enterprise (SME) survey has been conducted. The results of previous survey rounds, and in particular those of 2005, 2007, and 2009 inspired the Central Institute for Economic...
Report
Characteristics of the Vietnamese Business Environment
This report represents the seventh time that the small and medium enterprise (SME) survey has been conducted. The results of previous survey rounds, and in particular those of 2005, 2007, and 2009 inspired the Central Institute for Economic...
Report
Survey of Mozambican Manufacturing Firms 2017
This report documents the principal findings of the 2017 Survey of Mozambican Manufacturing Firms (IIM 2017). The survey was planned and implemented by researchers from the Development Economics Research Group (DERG) at the University of Copenhagen...
Working Paper
Aid and the Environment
We investigate allocations of foreign aid by donors to the environment sector in Kenya covering the period 2001-12. Our data are largely obtained from official government and global aid databases complemented with donor interviews. We find that donor...
Working Paper
The expansion of regional supermarket chains
This paper explores the effect of the spread of supermarkets on the participation of suppliers in supermarket value chains in Botswana and South Africa. Using secondary data and in-depth interviews with key players in the value chain, the paper...
Working Paper
Non-Financial Corporate Risk Management and Exchange Rate Volatility in Latin America
This article studies the currency risk management of multinational companies with investments in Latin American countries. The analysis is centred on episodes of currency or financial shocks, searching into the behaviour of the financial management...
Journal Article
Impact evaluation and synthesis
We examine how impact evaluation (IE) and associated syntheses contribute to evidence generation in low- and middle-income (LMIC) countries. We interviewed over 50 individuals from relevant organisations and five LMIC countries and drew on data from...
Working Paper
Aid and the Environment
Botswana has serious environmental problems which, if not addressed, will undermine the attainment of sustainable economic development. This study attempts to determine what aid flows have actually been doing with regard to the environment in...
Working Paper
Poverty in the Eyes of Brazilian Elites
This paper discusses data from a survey and in-depth interviews on elite perceptions of poverty in Brazil. De Swaan tried to identify the circumstances under which elites are willing to mobilize resources in order to promote poverty reduction. This...
Working Paper
Towards the integration of markets
Rapid urbanization and rising income levels in Southern Africa have increased the consumption of perishable and processed food products. This paper relies primarily on firm-level interview data to assess competition and bottlenecks in transporting...
Working Paper
The costs and benefits of formalization for firms
This paper is the first to use a panel dataset from the African continent to investigate the relationship between formalization and firm outcomes. Instead of applying a binary formality indicator, it constructs a conceptual framework that regards...
Working Paper
‘Ground-Truthing’ Chinese Development Finance in Africa
A new methodology, Tracking Under-Reported Financial Flows (TUFF), allows us to systematically gather open-source information—e.g. news reports, case studies, project inventories from embassy websites, and grant and loan data published by recipient...
Working Paper
COVID-19 and informal work
This paper presents findings from two rounds (2020 and 2021) of a study on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on informal workers in 11 cities across five regions of the world (Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, and North America). The study...
Journal Article
In the shadow of the city
Sub-Saharan Africa is the fastest urbanising region of the world. This demographic transformation has occurred in concert with two other trends in the region, nascent democratisation and stalled decentralisation. Using the case of Lusaka, Zambia...
Working Paper
Making sense of multi-level and multi-actor governance of recovery in Ukraine
This paper sheds light on the complex recovery governance in Ukraine by providing a snapshot of the evolving national recovery actors’ networks and examining them within a multi-level governance framework, using interviews, social network analysis...
Working Paper
Cyclone impacts on manufacturing firms in Mozambique
This study investigates how manufacturing companies were affected by tropical Cyclone Idai, which struck Central Mozambique in March 2019. The analysis builds upon a representative sample of 464 enterprises located in the cities of Beira and Chimoio...
Working Paper
Barriers to entry and the role of African multinational corporations
Effective competition in the Southern and East African regions requires independent rivals competing across borders and within domestic markets through innovation and effort, investment, product quality, and prices. To understand the constraints to...
Working Paper
Aid and the Environment
This paper seeks to (i) establish the areas in which aid from the major donors is concentrated; (ii) examine how aid has been allocated to the environmental sectors, and (iii) review the factors behind the success of environmental projects. Using...
Working Paper
Structural poverty dynamics in urban South Africa
This paper examines the extent and determinants of structural poverty dynamics in South Africa, focusing on the socio-economically disadvantaged urban African population. The quantitative analysis using panel data is triangulated with evidence from a...
Journal Article
Acting like a state
This article examines the complex local dynamics of armed violence in post-war Abkhazia. Drawing on in-depth interviews with the Abkhaz participants and non-participants in this violence and a range of secondary materials, it adapts the conceptual...
Journal Article
Opposition Parties and the Urban Poor in African Democracies
Africa’s urban poor increasingly represent a key constituency for electoral mobilization. Opposition parties, which are pivotal for democratic consolidation, have nevertheless exhibited disparate success at obtaining votes from this constituency. To...
Journal Article
The livelihood impacts of COVID-19 in urban South Africa
This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related policy measures on livelihoods in urban South Africa. Using qualitative research methods, we analyse two rounds of semi-structured phone interviews, conducted between June and...
Working Paper
Exploring the potential for growth and trade in fruit and oilseed-to-edible oils value chains following political shifts in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe’s persistent economic challenges since the early 1990s have been largely attributed to unpopular political decisions at the expense of building productive capacity in different sectors of the economy. Using a global value chains framework...
Journal Article
Linked-in by FDI
This study combines evidence from interviews in seven countries with (i) government institutions responsible for attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), (ii) 102 multinationals (MNEs), and (iii) 226 domestic firms linked to these foreign...
Working Paper
Competition and inclusive regional economic growth in food production
The growth of African multinational companies in Southern and East Africa in recent decades brings with it a great opportunity for development of productive capacity in the region and greater regional integration. This study identifies three emerging...
Working Paper
The livelihood impacts of COVID-19 in urban South Africa
This paper investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and related policy measures on livelihoods in urban South Africa. Using qualitative research methods, we analyse two rounds of semi-structured phone interviews, conducted between June and...
Working Paper
Towards sustainable livelihood in the Tanzanian informal economy
In spite of having some intensive national strategies to address poverty, Tanzania lacks a coherent national strategy to ensure sustainable livelihoods for those working in its informal economy, of which street vending is an important sector. Based...
Working Paper
The informal sector and the safety of female traders in Tanzania
This paper assesses the participation of female traders, safety factors, and existing policies and legislation in the informal sector in Tanzania. Primary data were obtained from 11 in-depth interviews, 10 focused group discussions, and 236...
Working Paper
‘Embedded’ Assistance
Donors face distinct challenges in operating in fragile states and supporting the building of state capacity. This paper explores one type of assistance – the ‘embedding’ of highly-skilled staff members within local government agencies – through a...
Working Paper
Labour turnover and workers' well-being in the Ethiopian manufacturing industry
Manufacturing industry expansion is a central part of Ethiopia’s growth and transformation agenda due to its potential for accelerated economic development and large-scale job creation, in particular for women. However, the industry is experiencing...
Working Paper
Civil wars and stumbling of patriarchal societies
This research project traces how women’s participation in the Liberian civil wars, as combatants and peace agents, reconstructs gender relations in the post-civil war context. The current literature examines the role of women in the governance of...
Working Paper
Connecting national ownership and local participation in aid recipient countries
This paper examines previously under-explored links between two aid-nurtured ideals. ‘National ownership’ and ‘local participation’ both aim to increase recipient influence and thereby address the inherent inequality of the aid relation. Questioning...
Working Paper
Material barriers, cultural boundaries
Data on female labour force participation in Bangladesh suggest that, despite the increase in female-intensive employment opportunities through microfinance, export garment manufacturing, and community-based services, the majority of working women...
Working Paper
The Political Economy of Food Price Policy in South Africa
This paper analyses the food price trends in South Africa during two periods of rapid food price inflation that occurred in the decade 2000–10 and unpacks the political reaction and policy responses to the food price crises in these two periods...