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Publications (47)
Blog
Discrimination against women and girls is a pervasive and long-running phenomenon that characterises Indian society at every level. India’s progress towards gender equality, measured by its position on rankings such as the Gender Development Index has been disappointing, despite fairly rapid rates...
Blog
Helsinki: symbol of peace in Aceh On the 15 August 2005, a government banquet hall in Helsinki became the centre point for international media. It was a day when the peace settlement between the Indonesian government and Aceh Independence Movement (Gereka Aceh Merdeka, GAM) known as the Helsinki...
Public sector schools operate within the broader context of political systems and the management of school systems can be influenced by political factors. Yet, there is a lack of quantitative or causal evidence on how political factors shape education systems and outcomes in developing countries...
Blog
When elephants fight, the grass suffers. According to an African proverb, when elephants fight, the grass suffers. In other words, when the big and powerful fight, it is the small who suffer. At UNU-WIDER’s recent conference, Responding to Crises, the focus of the debate was primarily on the grass —...
Rising powers have had a profound impact on the WTO. For over half a century the trading system was dominated by the US and other advanced industrialized states, with developing countries and their interests severely marginalized. However, over the course of the Doha Round of trade negotiations...
Book Chapter
This paper investigates whether cyclical variation in women’s labour supply in Africa contributes to smoothing household consumption. We find little support for this hypothesis. Using comparable individual data on about 0.5 million women in 30 Sub-Saharan African countries merged with country level...
Book Chapter
The aim of this paper is to analyse the effect of institutional reforms on the revival of African economies. We study the impact of positive changes in business environment indicators of the Doing Business project and the Economic Freedom Index of the Heritage Foundation on the private sector...
Book Chapter
This paper investigates some of the existing hypotheses regarding the transmission of different colonial legacies to modern day economic growth. The fact that different colonial strategies were pursued by different colonizers in various territories suggests possible ramifications for current...
Book Chapter
– Xenophobia in post-Apartheid South Africa
In May 2008, South Africa became the theatre of widespread violent attacks against undesirable ‘outsiders’. Over 60 were killed, hundreds wounded, and tens of thousands displaced. This analysis aims at identifying the characteristics of the victims in an attempt to portray the ‘alien’ using...
Book Chapter
– Aid, Democracy, and Instability from Trade
This study revisits the effect of aid on the quality of institutions and examines the effects of a major source of instability, namely terms-of-trade instability, on the quality of democracy. We take advantage of previous empirical findings which explain the role of aid in mitigating the adverse...
Book Chapter
– A Case Study of Liberia’s Telecommunication Laws
The telecommunications sector in Africa presents many exciting prospects to international investors—indeed many billion dollar projects are already underway across the continent. Many of the continent’s current problems can be traced to the exploitation it has experienced whilst ‘doing business’...
Book Chapter
– African Evidence from Panel Vector Autoregressive Framework
Using a panel vector autoregressive model this paper investigates the dynamic and endogeneous contribution of tourism to output based on a sample of 40 African countries for the period 1990–2006. Results from the study confirm tourism to be an important ingredient of African development although...
Book Chapter
Purposeful, well-targeted and successful transformation policies will be elusive for a country or region that does not understand the relative importance of its sectoral sources of growth. This study aims at eliciting our understanding in this respect by providing an assessment of the relative...
Book Chapter
– What Consequences for Economic Convergence?
This chapter examines the link between health indicators, environmental variables, and economic development, and the consequences of this relationship on economic convergence. In the early stage of economic development, the gain from income growth could be cancelled or mitigated by environmental...
Book Chapter
– Is Africa Different?
This chapter revisits the link between exchange rate regimes and trade in the context of Africa’s exchange rate arrangements. Applying an augmented gravity model that includes measures of currency unions and pegged regimes, the paper compares Africa’s experience with that of the world. Our results...
Displaying 16 of 47 results