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This article is from a forthcoming UNU-WIDER special issue of the International Journal of Microsimulation A key challenge facing developing countries when they are gradually building up their social protection system is the presence of a large informal sector. Social safety nets should be...
Local content and local participation policy and legislation have come to stay in Ghana’s oil and gas industry. The policy and legislation have been described largely as adequate, promising, and necessary to promote local content and local participation in the oil and gas industry....
The level of income can be directly inferred from the level of education, making education an important variable as a key determinant of better livelihoods and poverty alleviation. However, in most developing countries education is not accessible to all. In Ghana—although basic education...
From the book: Industries without Smokestacks
This paper considers the case for universal child allowances in Ghana. It follows findings from an earlier study of 14 middle income countries that examined optimal approaches to reduce child poverty using universal categorical child allowances. The paper describes the demographic profiles...
The research explores the structure and performance of Ghana’s construction subsector, in light of the country’s 2007 oil discovery. Using primary and secondary data resources, we discuss how marginal costs and expenditure shocks may vary within the construction sector for...
Oil resources are neither a curse nor a blessing. The sound management of these resources can make them beneficial or otherwise. In order to translate Ghana’s oil resources into inclusive development amid high expectations, several laws and regulations have been passed and new institutions...
Understanding the relationship between food access and welfare is critical in the design of social welfare policies, but the literature on this relationship is scarce. Employing the framework by Van Praag (1968) to a household survey data on Ghana, we investigate the monetary income required by...
In the first part of this blog, Alan R. Roe writes about the difficulties governments face in predicting revenues from extractive industries. Read part two here. Countries endowed with rich mineral or oil and gas resources have many competing uses for the revenues that arise from the...
This paper examines the influence of political considerations on intergovernmental fiscal transfers in Ghana. The two-step system GMM approach was used to estimate transfers and elections data for 167 districts from 1994 to 2014. The analysis was country-wide and covers swing districts as well as...
We use four novel, cross-country comparable tax-benefit microsimulation models for Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa to evaluate ex ante the expansion of a universal old-age pension in a static setting. Universal pensions would significantly reduce poverty and inequality in settings in...
The decision to migrate is often influenced by the experience of earlier migrants from one’s household. Earlier migrants provide information on likely opportunities and potential risks and can offer support at destination to later migrants. We explore patterns of migration within...
This paper examines irregular South-South migration from China to Ghana, and the role it has played in transforming livelihoods and broader developmental landscapes. It looks at the entry from the mid-2000s of approximately 50,000 Chinese migrants into the small-scale gold mining sector. They...