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Publications (86)
Working Paper
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The paper explores the paths towards building institutional foundations for inclusive development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Viewing institutional configurations as a system of multiple equilibria, the concepts of endogenous institutions and institutional changes are used to address the question of how...
Working Paper
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We present a unified structural equation modelling framework for the regression-based decomposition of rank-dependent indicators of socioeconomic inequality of health and compare it with a simple ordinary least squares regression. The structural equation modelling framework forms the basis for a...
Working Paper
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– Anonymous Versus Panel Income Approaches
We reconcile, both theoretically and empirically, changes in inequality with panel income changes over periods of economic growth and decline. We also explore what factors account for the trends of short-run inequality and of inequality in individual average earnings. Finally, we explore what...
Working Paper
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– A South African Case Study
The democratic government in South Africa has developed a system of social grants to combat the high levels of poverty and inequality inherited from the apartheid regime. With the help of modest economic growth and an associated increase in per capita household income, the introduction and expansion...
Working Paper
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– The Case of Botswana 1921-2010
In Sub-Saharan Africa we find some of the highest levels of income inequality in the world. Nevertheless, we generally know very little about the historical development of inequality. In this paper we look at how inequality developed in colonial and post-colonial Botswana. We show that income...
Working Paper
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– The Dynamics and Impacts of B2B E-commerce on the South African Manufacturing Sector
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 interviews with industry experts. The research...
Working Paper
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The effect of computer technology on Finnish economic growth in 1983-96 is examined to shed light into the famous productivity paradox. Using the neoclassical growth accounting framework, the contribution of computer hardware, software and labor to gross and net output growth is assessed at...
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– International Evidence
The rapid diffusion of computers has widely changed the consequences of computer use on the labour market. While at the beginning of the eighties knowledge of computers was an obvious advantage in a career, this same knowledge is now so commonplace that the inability to use these tools is widely...
Research Brief
– The Role of Politics
In the WIDER Working Paper ‘Vertical Decentralization and Urban Service Delivery in South Africa: Does Politics Matter?’ Robert Cameron looks at the ways in which politics affects decentralization and service delivery in South Africa. To do this he looks at Cape Town, which is controlled by the...
Working Paper
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In many African countries, decentralization has long been viewed as a means for improving local service delivery. Yet, despite various decentralization initiatives, poor service delivery continues to be problematic in two of Kenya’s largest cities, Nairobi and Mombasa. Despite various governance...
Working Paper
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– The Role of Demand-side Initiatives
Past breakthroughs in communication technology—the invention of the printing press and the telegraph—led to major economic upheavals. What are the implications of the more recent information and communication technologies (ICTs) for the developing world? Optimists believe that modern ICTs will allow...
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– Are Developing Countries Different?
Factors determining the diffusion of digital mobile telephony across 200 developed and developing countries in the 1990s are studied with the aid of a Gompertz model. The market size and network effects are found to play more important roles in the developing countries; there is also more need for...
Working Paper
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– A Cumulative Relationship
This paper, using a cumulative growth model and a catch-up model, verifies the cumulative relationship between IT investment and economic growth, and then examines whether this relationship enlarges the differences in the economic growth among OECD countries. We observe the following results: first...
Research Brief
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Favouritism of government controlled councils is most distinct through interference in local politics rather than through funding mechanisms. The motivation of central government intervention in land deals is two-fold - their actions can be explicitly motivated by politics and self-interest or they...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from the Transition Economies
Over the past few years, many commentators have suggested that the Internet is one of the forces driving globalization. This paper tries to assess one aspect of these claims, looking at whether Internet access appears to affect the export performance of enterprises in low- and middle-income...
Working Paper
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Sub-Saharan African cities have been growing at historically unprecedented rates. Since the early 1970s, they have welcomed international assistance involving a succession of major thematic objectives. The main agency involved in urban assistance has been the World Bank. But as its goals have...
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