nep-afr New Economics Papers
on Africa
Issue of 2020‒12‒21
seven papers chosen by
Sam Sarpong
The University of Mines and Technology

  1. The Green Economy and Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Avoidable Thresholds and Thresholds for Complementary Policies By Simplice A. Asongu; Nicholas M. Odhiambo
  2. Trade Openness and Employment, Implications on Urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa By Adou, Niango Sika Antoine Brice
  3. Social Inequalities and the Politicization of Ethnic Cleavages in Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, 1999-2019 By Jules Baleyte; Amory Gethin; Yajna Govind; Thomas Piketty
  4. How Africans shaped British colonial institutions: evidence from local taxation By Bolt, Jutta; Gardner, Leigh
  5. Exporters in Africa: What Role for Trade Costs? By Helena Afonso; Sebastian Vergara
  6. Fathoming slavery: feudalism, African bondage, globalisation and beyond By Saccal, Alessandro
  7. SNI Model for Sustainable Black Women Owned Cooperatives By Costa, King; Ntwane, Johlene

  1. By: Simplice A. Asongu (Yaounde, Cameroon); Nicholas M. Odhiambo (Pretoria, South Africa)
    Abstract: The study examines nexuses between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, renewable energy consumption and inequality in 39 Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 2004-2014. The empirical evidence is based on Quantile regressions. First, in the 25th quantile of the inequality distributions, as long as CO2 emissions metric tons per capita are kept below 4.700 (4.100), the Gini coefficient (Atkinson index) will not increase. These are avoidable CO2 emissions thresholds. Second, renewable energy consumption should be complemented with other policies to: (i) reduce the Gini coefficient when renewable energy consumption is at 50.00% of total final energy consumption and (ii) mitigate the Atkinson index when renewable energy consumption is at 62.500 % of total final energy consumption in the bottom quantiles of the Atkinson index distribution and at 50.00% of total final energy consumption in the 75th quantile of the Atkinson index distribution. These are renewable energy consumption thresholds for complementary policies. The novelty of this study in the light of extant literature is fundamentally premised on providing policy makers with avoidable thresholds of CO2 emissions as well as corresponding thresholds of renewable energy consumption for complementary policies, in the nexus between the green economy and inequality.
    Keywords: Renewable energy; Inequality; Finance; Sub-Saharan Africa; Sustainable development
    JEL: H10 Q20 Q30 O11 O55
    Date: 2020–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agd:wpaper:20/097&r=all
  2. By: Adou, Niango Sika Antoine Brice
    Abstract: Why are African countries urbanizing so fast? How do cities promote growth and why is it important to solve urban issues in Africa? In the context of higher push for trade liberalisation multilaterally, it is not trivial to ask these set of question. In this study the main objective is to check the influence of trade openness of African economies on their urbanisation rate. We also assess, how evolution of non-agricultural employment has also impacted this rate. We used panel data specifications, both in static and dynamic design. The data used are collected between 1990 and 2019 on 38 African countries. Although generally urbanisation has increased during recent years in Africa, regions have experienced different pathways in the process. The results show that both trade openness and non-agricultural employment have been motivation for people to urbanise over years, in Africa. When we consider countries with high amount of people living in slums, they are more driven by employment purpose. Other variables such as per capita GDP and the fertility rate have positive and significant influence, while FDI and national investment have mixed impact. It is important to collaborate in a continental level to take advantage of the rapid urbanisation.
    Keywords: Urbanisation, Trade Openness, Employment, Panel Data
    JEL: F14 O18 R11
    Date: 2020–11–23
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:104317&r=all
  3. By: Jules Baleyte (INSEE); Amory Gethin (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, WIL - World Inequality Lab); Yajna Govind (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, WIL - World Inequality Lab); Thomas Piketty (PSE - Paris School of Economics, PJSE - Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques - UP1 - Université Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS Paris - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris sciences et lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, WIL - World Inequality Lab)
    Abstract: This paper draws on political attitudes surveys to document the evolution of political cleavages in Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal, four African countries that have held regular multi-party elections in the past two decades. We discuss how colonialism, the politicization of ethnic identities, and the structure of social inequalities have differentially shaped party politics in these countries. Ethnic cleavages are tightly linked to ethnic inequalities, and are highest in Nigeria, at intermediate levels in Ghana, and lowest in Botswana and Senegal. We find evidence of strong educational and rural-urban divides, which cannot be explained by ethnic or regional affiliations. Our results suggest that in these four countries, electoral politics are not only explained by patronage, valence, or leader effects, but also clearly have a socioeconomic dimension. At a time when class cleavages have partly collapsed in old Western democracies, these African democracies could well be moving towards class-based party systems.
    Date: 2020–09
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:psewpa:halshs-03022210&r=all
  4. By: Bolt, Jutta; Gardner, Leigh
    Abstract: The institutions that governed most of the rural population in British colonial Africa have been neglected in the literature on colonialism. We use new data on local governments, or "Native Authorities,"to present the first quantitative comparison of African institutions under indirect rule in four colonies in 1948: Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Nyasaland, and Kenya. Tax data show that Native Authorities' capacity varied within and between colonies, due to both underlying economic inequalities and African elites' relations with the colonial government. Our findings suggest that Africans had a bigger hand in shaping British colonial institutions than often acknowledged.
    Keywords: ES/R005753
    JEL: N0
    Date: 2020–10–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:107519&r=all
  5. By: Helena Afonso; Sebastian Vergara
    Abstract: This paper investigates the role of trade costs in exporter dynamics in Africa. In comparison to exporters from other regions, African exporting firms are fewer, smaller and relatively less diversified in terms of products and destinations. African countries also display the highest rates of entry, exit and turnover of exporting firms, exporting products and export destinations. This suggests that Africa’s exporting activity is volatile and subject to a lot of experimentation, with exporters having difficulties in maintaining trade relationships. The analysis also confirms that trade costs are a crucial factor in explaining exporter performance in Africa vis-à-vis other regions, but also among African countries. Trade costs play a disproportionate role in affecting the size of new exporters and the survival of exporters in Africa in comparison to other regions. Also, trade costs differences across African countries are a relevant factor in explaining the lower market diversification of exporters from landlocked countries. A key implication is that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement can entail large benefits in the medium-term, especially in terms of export flows and destination markets. Yet, the diversification of export products will likely remain limited without strengthening productive capacities.
    Keywords: Trade costs, exporters dynamics, Africa
    JEL: F14
    Date: 2020–06
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:une:wpaper:168&r=all
  6. By: Saccal, Alessandro
    Abstract: Wherever dechristianisation could not have possibly materialised, in those polities which abandoned God to start with, since the Fall to the eschaton, slavery was never substantially execrated, having continued to this day, net of abolitionism, in globalisation. Thence the perduring Arab slave trade over one millenium and the improbability of an end to the Atlantic one absent abolitionism, which would have withal flowed indeed into globalisation. No sooner was Western Europe by contrast dechristianised at heart, in the tares of Protestantism, than the internal slave raids ended together with the tutelage of feudalism.
    Keywords: Africa; Arabs; apostasy; dechristianisation; Europe; feudalism; globalisation; Levant; Protes- tantism; slavery.
    JEL: N20 N21 N22 N23 N24 N25 N26 N27 Z12
    Date: 2020–11–18
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:104298&r=all
  7. By: Costa, King (Global Centre for Academic Research); Ntwane, Johlene
    Abstract: This study focussed on developing a strategy framework for sustainable business undertaking by black women owned cooperatives in the Northern Cape district of Francis Baard. Black women owned cooperatives face a number of notable impediments that obstruct sustainable and successful business development and management. Some of the contributors to the current state of affairs could be attributable to lack of effective strategy focussed on cooperatives in general and black owned women cooperatives in particular. A number of studies have been published on the plight and status of cooperatives in South Africa and beyond, with clearly focussed recommendation emanating from empirical findings. This study, being aware of vast repository of literature on the phenomena and using the Population, Intervention, Comparator and Outcome (PICO) method, sought to answer the question, “how to develop a strategy framework for black women owned cooperatives to run sustainable businesses. A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis, a method within the Systematic Reviews approach was adopted as suitable orientation for answering the research question. A systematic review, also known as research on research (RoR) provides evidence based solution hinged upon primary research conducted by many different authors on the same context or situation. Using a Preferred Reporting items for systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA), A total of 400 articles were retrieved from varied databases such as Ebsco-host, Google Scholar, Z-Library and Web of Science. Through a rigorous critical appraisal of these articles, 100 articles were finally included in the study as subject of analysis. Thematic analysis using the webQDA software produced thematic expressions that were finally treated to develop a theory/framework as per main research objective. The outcome of this qualitative evidence synthesis culminated in a formulation of the SNI Framework for Sustainable Black Women Owned Cooperatives.
    Date: 2020–11–27
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:africa:7wrbd&r=all

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