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Publications (17)
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This paper develops a model of opportunistic behaviour in which an incumbent government resort to expansionary fiscal and/or monetary stimuli to foster economic growth and thus, maximize the probability of re-election. Using a panel dataset of 51 African countries covering the period 1980 to 2012...
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– A New Approach to Development Policy
Successful development programs rely on people to behave and choose in certain ways, and behavioral economics helps us understand why people behave and choose as they do. Approaching problems in development using behavioral economics thus leads to better diagnosis and to better-designed solutions...
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– Drivers, Lessons and Shifts in the Engagement of the Brazilian Ministry of Social Development
The Brazilian Ministry of Social Development’s co-operation with sub-Saharan Africa has shifted from an initial engagement in cash transfers to a recent engagement in food and nutritional security. This paper aims at understanding the main drivers for such shift considering lessons drawn from first...
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– an Analysis of Aid Effectiveness for Primary Education Coverage and Quality
This paper examines the effect of education aid on primary enrollment and education quality. Using the most recent data on aid disbursements and econometric specifications inspired by the general aid effectiveness literature, we find some evidence that donors’ increase in funding has substantially...
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– Productivity, Policy Syndromes, and the Importance of Institutions
Recent evidence from an exhaustive political economy study of growth of African economies—the growth project of the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) suggests that ‘policy syndromes’ have substantially contributed to the generally poor growth in sub-Saharan Africa during post-independence...
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Recent research regarding property rights and economic development often treats property rights security in a country as homogeneous, although protecting the private entitlements of some can entail preventing others from claiming and controlling those same resources. This one-dimensional conception...
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– Is There a Case for Public Land Leasing and Sales to Finance India’s Cities?
In this study an attempt has been made to assess the potential of land as a municipal financing tool in four Indian cities, to enable better public service delivery and attainment of the MDGs. The institutional arrangements for land use are fragmented in India’s cities between the urban development...
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Vietnam has been among the most successful East Asian economies, especially in weathering the external shocks of recent globalization crises—the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and the 2008-09 great recession, financial crisis and collapse of global trade. Its success contradicts its characterization...
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Economic growth in Vietnam has been fairly resilient to the global commodity and financial crises, but it is unclear why. In addition, the impact of the crises on employment and poverty is in dispute. We develop a dynamic computable general equilibrium model to decompose impacts and estimate...
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– Evidence from African Economies
The paper explores the impact of a binding external debt-servicing constraint on the sectoral composition of government expenditures in the economies of Africa, where this constraint has traditionally been most prevalent. Applying seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) to 1975-94 five-year panel data...
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– Theory and Evidence
This paper presents a model allowing one to analyze the joint determination of inequality, taxes, human capital and growth. We consider the political economy of redistribution between three income groups in a dynamic economy. The paper seeks to explain the effect of corruptibility (exemptions) and...
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– What Role did Money Play?
The Chinese economy underwent cyclical fluctuations in growth and inflation in the reform period. Contrasting views exist on the role of money in such fluctuations. This paper assesses these views employing structural VEC models based on the exchange equation. It is found that in the long run money...
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This paper proposes a structural VAR model which extends the frameworks of Hoffmaister and Roldós (2001) and Prasad (1999). The model is then used to analyse the sources of China’s trade balance fluctuations in the period of 1985–2000. Efforts are made to distinguish the forces which underlie the...
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– Perspectives from an AD-AS Model
This paper represents a first attempt to study China’s business cycles using a formal analytical framework, namely, a structural VAR model. It is found that: (a) demand shocks were the dominant source of macroeconomic fluctuations, but supply shocks had gained more importance over time; (b) the...
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– A Review and Commentary
This paper is a review and commentary, from both ethical and informational perspectives, of some known results in optimal anti-poverty budgetary rules for two kinds of intervention, direct income transfers and wage employment programmes.
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The paper deals with the success of price controls in stabilizing high inflation rates and their effects on the real economy under an imperfect competition setting derived by optimal maximization. Our model builds on Helpman’s work of price controls and imperfect competition, and incorporates...
Displaying 16 of 17 results