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on Africa |
| By: | Quattri, Maria; Fosu, Augustin Kwasi |
| Abstract: | In the wake of the current financial and economic crises, the economies of sub-Saharan Africa find themselves squeezed between likely reductions in official development assistance and the pressing challenge to eradicate poverty. Public expenditure allocat |
| Keywords: | SSA, HIPC, public expenditure allocation, external debt and aid |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-42&r=afr |
| By: | , Aili Mari |
| Abstract: | Tanzania has been a relative success story in Africa in terms of political reform. While foreign aid has helped strengthen institutions that advance accountability, it simultaneously supports a status quo that undermines accountability and democratization |
| Keywords: | Tanzania, democratization, accountability, foreign aid, decentralization, public goods |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-37&r=afr |
| By: | Croke, Kevin; Dabalen, Andrew; Demombybes, Gabriel; Giugale, Marcelo; Hoogeveen, Johannes |
| Abstract: | As mobile phone ownership rates have risen in Africa, there is increased interest in using mobile telephony as a data collection platform. This paper draws on two pilot projects that use mobile phone interviews for data collection in Tanzania and South Sudan. The experience was largely a success. High frequency panel data have been collected on a wide range of topics in a manner that is cost effective, flexible (questions can be changed over time) and rapid. And once households respond to the mobile phone interviews, they tend not to drop out: even after 33 rounds of interviews in the Tanzania survey, respondent fatigue proved not to be an issue. Attrition and non-response have been an issue in the Tanzania survey, but in ways that are related to the way this survey was originally set up and that are fixable. Data and reports from the Tanzania survey are available online and can be downloaded from: www.listeningtodar.org. |
| Keywords: | E-Business,Social Analysis,Social Accountability,E-Government,Participations and Civic Engagement |
| Date: | 2012–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6097&r=afr |
| By: | Gazibo, Mamoudou |
| Abstract: | In the 1990s, analysts were almost unanimous in considering Benin to be one of the most important aid recipients among the newly democratizing African countries. After more than two decades of democratic practice, the country has clearly completed the pha |
| Keywords: | Benin, foreign aid, democratic consolidation, accountability, corruption, elections |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-33&r=afr |
| By: | Gyimah-Boadi, E.; Yakah, Theo |
| Abstract: | Ghana?s experience since the early 1990s indicates that external aid can significantly impact a country?s democratic transition. External democracy assistance has been a crucial, positive factor in Ghana?s steady evolution into an electoral democracy over |
| Keywords: | Ghana, electoral democracy, foreign aid |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-40&r=afr |
| By: | Simplice A, Asongu |
| Abstract: | How do government policies and institutions affect stock market performance? As stock markets grow broader and deeper in African countries, the question becomes more critical. Government quality dynamics of corruption-control, government-effectiveness, political-stability or no violence, voice & accountability, regulation quality and rule of law are instrumented with income-levels, religious-dominations, press-freedom degrees and legal-origins to account for stock market performance dynamics of capitalization, value traded, turnover and number of listed companies. The results demonstrate a significant positive association between stock market performance measures and the quality of government institutions. These findings suggest countries with better developed government institutions would favor stock markets with higher market capitalization, better turnover ratios, higher value in shares traded and greater number of listed companies. |
| Keywords: | Financial Markets; Government Policy; Political Economy |
| JEL: | P43 G18 G28 G10 P16 |
| Date: | 2012–06–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39631&r=afr |
| By: | Anderson, Gordon |
| Abstract: | Aphorisms that "Rising tides raise all boats" or that material advances of the rich eventually "Trickle Down" to the poor are really maxims regarding the nature of stochastic processes that underlay the income/wellbeing paths of groups of individuals. This paper looks at the implications for the empirical analysis of wellbeing of conventional assumptions regarding such processes which are employed by both micro and macro economists in modeling economic behavior. The implications of attributing different processes to different groups in society following the club convergence literature are also discussed. Various forms of poverty, inequality, polarization and income mobility structures are considered and much of the conventional wisdom afforded us by such aphorisms is questioned. To exemplify these ideas the results are applied to the distribution of GDP per capita in the continent of Africa. -- |
| Keywords: | Stochastic processes,poverty,inequality,wellbeing measurement |
| JEL: | C22 D63 D91 I32 O47 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:201228&r=afr |
| By: | Gheyssens, Jonathan; Gunther, Isabel |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to expand our knowledge on risk aversion among the poor by conducting experiments that do not only test risk aversion in small and large stakes but also in risky gains and risky losses. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt |
| Keywords: | risk aversion; loss aversion; religion |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2012-38&r=afr |
| By: | Kuikeu, Oscar |
| Abstract: | In cfa franc zone, the exchange rate was devalued, in 1994, in order to deal with the major macroeconomic imbalances that have affected the members during the 1980 decade. Thus, the aim of this paper is to know if this devaluation was relevant, and, in the sense that the devaluation is relevant only if the real exchange rate is overvalued, we will assess the degree of the real exchange rate misalignment in the cfa franc zone. |
| Keywords: | equilibrium real exchange rate, cfa franc zone |
| JEL: | C33 F31 |
| Date: | 2012–06–21 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39614&r=afr |
| By: | Gertler, Paul; Vermeersch, Christel |
| Abstract: | This study examines the effect of performance incentives for health care providers to provide more and higher quality care in Rwanda on child health outcomes. The authors find that the incentives had a large and significant effect on the weight-for-age of children 0-11 months and on the height-for-age of children 24-49 months. They attribute this improvement to increases in the use and quality of prenatal and postnatal care. Consistent with theory, They find larger effects of incentives on services where monetary rewards and the marginal return to effort are higher. The also find that incentives reduced the gap between provider knowledge and practice of appropriate clinical procedures by 20 percent, implying a large gain in efficiency. Finally, they find evidence of a strong complementarity between performance incentives and provider skill. |
| Keywords: | Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Population Policies,Health Systems Development&Reform,Disease Control&Prevention,Adolescent Health |
| Date: | 2012–06–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6100&r=afr |
| By: | Kuikeu, Oscar |
| Abstract: | In cfa franc zone, the exchange rate was devalued, in 1994, in order to deal with the major macroeconomic imbalances that have affected the members during the 1980 decade. Thus, the aim of this paper is to know if this devaluation was relevant for Gabon an member state of the cfa franc zone, and, in the sense that the devaluation is relevant only if the real exchange rate is overvalued, we will assess the degree of the real exchange rate misalignment in Gabon. |
| Keywords: | equilibrium real exchange rate; cfa franc zone |
| JEL: | C33 F31 |
| Date: | 2012–06–23 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:39625&r=afr |