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on Africa |
| By: | Dirk Kohnert (GIGA Institute of African Affairs) |
| Abstract: | Promising growth rates, increased trade, and competition among major global players for African resources have boosted the development and bargaining power of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) in relation to the EU. However, Africa's least developed countries remain vulnerable to external shocks. Academic analysis is still too heavily influenced by scholastic controversies. Neither the controversy over “big-push” concepts nor the blaming of African culture as an impediment to growth or good government do justice to the real issues at stake. Even beyond the aftermath of (neo)colonialism, and notwithstanding continuing deficits in good government in many African countries, the EU bears responsibility for the fragile state of many African economies. The self-interested trade policies of the EU and other world powers contribute to poverty and unsatisfactory development in SSA. This threatens to perpetuate asymmetrical power relations in the new Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), to the detriment of regional integration and pro-poor growth. However, mounting competition between China and other global players for Africa's resources is resulting in windfall profits for Africa. The latter is leading to a revival of seesaw politics, already known from the times of the Cold War, on the part of African states. This could be profitable for Africa's power elite, but not necessarily for Africa's poor. |
| Keywords: | economic integration, trade policy, aid, international migration, regional integration, EU, Africa, China |
| JEL: | F13 F15 F22 F24 F42 F59 N47 P45 R11 |
| Date: | 2008–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:gig:wpaper:82&r=afr |
| By: | Kohnert, Dirk |
| Abstract: | Promising growth rates, increased trade, and competition among major global players for African resources have boosted the development and bargaining power of sub-Saharan Af-rica (SSA) in relation to the EU. However, Africa's least developed countries remain vulner-able to external shocks. Academic analysis is still too heavily influenced by scholastic con-troversies. Neither the controversy over “big-push” concepts nor the blaming of African cul-ture as an impediment to growth or good government do justice to the real issues at stake. Even beyond the aftermath of (neo)colonialism, and notwithstanding continuing deficits in good government in many African countries, the EU bears responsibility for the fragile state of many African economies. The self-interested trade policies of the EU and other world powers contribute to poverty and unsatisfactory development in SSA. This threatens to per-petuate asymmetrical power relations in the new Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), to the detriment of regional integration and pro-poor growth. However, mounting competi-tion between China and other global players for Africa's resources is resulting in windfall profits for Africa. The latter is leading to a revival of seesaw politics, already known from the times of the Cold War, on the part of African states. This could be profitable for Africa's power elite, but not necessarily for Africa's poor. |
| Keywords: | economic integration;trade policy;aid;international migration; regional integration;EU;Africa;China |
| JEL: | F22 F13 P45 F59 F42 F15 N47 R11 F24 |
| Date: | 2008–07–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:9434&r=afr |
| By: | Swantje Allmers; Wolfgang Maennig (Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg) |
| Abstract: | This contribution provides an ex post analysis of the economic impacts of the two most recent single-country World Cups (WCs), Germany 2006 and France 1998. Based on macroeconomic indi-cators, the experiences of these WCs appear to be in line with existing empirical research on large sporting events and sports stadiums, which have rarely identified significant net economic benefits. Of more significance are the novelty effects of the stadiums, and “intangible effects” such as the image effect for the host nations and the feel-good effect for the population. The experiences of former WCs provide a context for analysing the scope and limits for South Africa 2010. Like previous host countries, South Africa might have to cope with difficulties such as the under-use of most WC-stadiums in the aftermath of the tournament. On the other hand, this paper examines a handful of arguments why South Africa might realise larger economic benefits than former hosts of WCs, such as the absence of the northern-style ‘couch potato effect’ and the absence of negative crowding-out effects on regular tourism. Furthermore, the relative scarcity of sport arenas in South Africa might induce a larger positive effect than in countries with ample provision of sports facilities. In addition, against the backdrop of continuous declines in South African poverty since 2001, the novelty effect of new stadiums might be of special importance. Finally, the innovative South African ambitions to use stadiums with ‘signature architecture’ as a tool for urban development or to generate external effects for the regional economy are different from former WCs. |
| Keywords: | Regional Economics, Sports Economics, World Cup, Stadium Impact, Feelgood Factor |
| JEL: | L83 R53 R58 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hce:wpaper:021&r=afr |
| By: | Odd-Helge Fjeldstad; Mick Moore |
| Abstract: | Since the early 1990s, many countries in Anglophone Africa have established (semi-) autonomous revenue authorities (ARAs), organisationally distinct from ministries of finance, with some real operational autonomy, and with staff paid at rates similar to those in comparable private sector jobs. The introduction of revenue agencies has been seen by some as a step on the road to privatisation of the revenue collection process. We demonstrate in the article that this is a misreading of the story of revenue authorities in Anglophone Africa. This conclusion is reached by examining two related sets of questions. The first set concerns the transnational transfer of institutions. Is it a problem that ARAs have spread so fast under the influence of aid and of international financial institutions? The second set of questions relates to the more specific issue of the autonomy of revenue agencies. Is the establishment of revenue agencies another way of fragmenting the authority of already weak central government institutions? Our answers are largely ‘no' to both sets of concerns. Addressing these questions enables us to explain what ARAs actually imply for state capacity in Anglophone Africa. |
| Keywords: | Taxation Tax administration Privatisation State capacity Africa JEL classification: H10, H29, 020, 038 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:chm:wpaper:wp2008-1&r=afr |
| By: | Christophe Muller (Universidad de Alicante) |
| Abstract: | In this paper, we draw some lessons from the Tunisian experience of social reforms and associated civil conflict. Our main interest is the riots that occurred after subsidy cuts and the attempts at substitution of price subsidies by direct cash transfers. We propose new welfare indicators apt to assess policy reforms in such situations. Using micro level data, we show that plausible policy decisions depend on parameters describing the balance between poverty and program exclusion risk. In the Tunisian case, only a much larger weight put on poverty relatively to exclusion could bring the decision maker to substitute the in force price subsidies with direct cash transfers. |
| Keywords: | Poverty; Social conflicts; North Africa, Tunisia, Targeting; Social transfers |
| JEL: | D63 H53 I38 |
| Date: | 2008–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ivi:wpasad:2008-08&r=afr |