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Publications (22)
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– Recent Evidence and Trends
This paper examines the nature and extent of global and regional income distribution and inequality using the most recent country level data on income distribution drawn from World Bank and UNU-WIDER studies for the period 1993-2000. The methodology used is a recently developed technique to fit...
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This paper reviews Finnish economic history during the 'long' twentieth century with a special emphasis on policies for equity and growth. We argue that Finland developed from a poor, vulnerable, and conflict-prone country to a modern economy in part through policies geared at both growth and equity...
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– Lessons from Brazil
In the last twenty years, Brazil has undergone several attempts of improving sustainable growth through stabilization programmes, and more recently, structural reforms in line with the Washington Consensus Agenda. The results, however, have been disappointing, as the per capita output growth has...
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– A Spurious Controversy?
In the age of globalization, the question whether inequality in the world rose or fell down, is a hot topic. Leading scholars in the field of economic inequality measurement developed methods to estimate empirically the distribution of welfare (income) amongst world citizens. Despite their similar...
The relationship between growth and poverty lies at the heart of development economics. While many see aggregate growth as both necessary and sufficient for reducing poverty, and consequently focus their efforts on achieving the desired macroeconomic outcomes, others stress that the benefits from...
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In this paper we present two composite indices of globalization. The first is based on the Kearney/Foreign Policy magazine and the second is obtained from principal component analysis. They indicate which countries have become most globalized and show how globalization has developed over time. The...
– Ownership, Incentives, and Capabilities
There is not a single African country that did not attempt public sector reforms in the 1990s. Governments no longer see themselves as sole suppliers of social services, frequently opting for partnerships with the private sector. Efficiency and choice have entered the language of the planning and...
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– An Overview of African Law
Insolvency and debt recovery procedures are as crucial to a well-performing financial sector as credit provision itself. They are even more important in Africa, where attempts are underway to create fully-fledged financial markets. For the financial system to be credible, creditors must be ensured...
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– On Factors Affecting Implementation
Although privatization has been a key feature of economic policy in Africa since the early 1990s its sequencing and intensity have varied from country to country, with donor leverage being an important determinant of the pace of implementation. However, although many privatization schemes were...
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The last twenty years has seen an extensive and exhausting debate on how to improve the institutions of African states. But progress has been patchy at best. Many of the problems arise from a ‘partial-reform equilibrium’; initial reforms are undertaken, but then strong resistance is encountered, and...
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Can African countries learn from the development experiences of other regions? Or are the continent’s development challenges unique? This paper looks at the development experience of the Nordic countries, especially Sweden, from the nineteenth century and discusses the extent to which the observed...
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– Recent Experiences
The recent emphasis on governance in Africa is unique in that it was initiated by donors and not by domestic leaders under pressure from their own constituencies. Thus while many countries have embraced the market economy and liberalized their policies, issues related to political participation...
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In developing countries, particularly in those countries that have experienced declining growth rates, institutional failure (bad policies) is closely related to development failure and growth collapses. This paper addresses the issues of commitment, compromise and rent seeking, all of which are...
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Following close to two decades of political distress and economic decline, Uganda embarked, in the mid 1980s, on far-reaching reforms under Yoweri Museveni’s National Resistance Movement. Decentralization was emphasized, with the new leaders highlighting the importance of proximity to policymakers...
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– Incentives, Governance and Accountability
Since the early 1990s, Malawi has tried to undertake economic reforms, including the restructuring of the public sector, even as it embraced democratic reforms. Paucity of human and financial resources has made the process difficult and drawn out. However, towards the end of the 1990s, the reforms...
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Africa’s formal economies responded poorly to economic reform measures in the 1980s and 1990s while informal markets and institutions responded dynamically and proved to be more resilient. Using comparative analysis of African informal economies, this study explains why this was the case. It...
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