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on Africa |
| By: | Diakité, Nanamoudou; Diallo, Ibrahima; Sene, Babacar; Sene, Omar |
| Abstract: | The rapid digitalization of sub-Saharan Africa has generated considerable hope for territorial development. Yet behind the dominant discourse of technological leapfrogging lies a troubling reality: the digital divide may amplify existing inequalities rather than reduce them. This study examines this crucial question through analysis of six West African countries using Afrobarometer Round 9 data. We construct a multidimensional digital divide index integrating equipment access, internet usage, and information isolation, then quantify its association with three essential services: drinking water, health, and education. Our results reveal three major findings that challenge current policies. First, formal education constitutes the most powerful determinant of digital inclusion, well ahead of wealth or geographic location. Second, digital divide is strongly associated with deficits in access to essential services, and this association persists even after rigorous control for territorial heterogeneity via district fixed effects models. Third, contrary to expectations, the impact of digital exclusion does not vary significantly between rural and urban areas, suggesting that marginalization transcends simple geographic dichotomy. |
| Keywords: | digital divide, basic services, social capital, West Africa, territorial development |
| JEL: | O33 O55 H41 I38 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:esprep:329654 |
| By: | Cerkez, Nicolas; Cunningham, Wendy; Gupta, Sarika; Lung, Felix |
| Abstract: | A large share of workers in Sub-Saharan Africa earn a living through informal, low productivity household enterprises. While structural transformation toward formal wage employment is viewed as the long-term path to improving livelihoods, progress has been slow. In the meantime, small enterprises will remain a key source of employment for many years to come, making it important to better understand how to help such enterprises thrive. This paper uses original survey data from 1, 526 poor individuals across Liberia, Niger, and Senegal to examine the aspirations and constraints of urban household enterprise owners. The results suggest that most surveyed business owners voluntarily started their businesses, are satisfied with their jobs, and aspire to and have plans to expand their businesses. Most report that they earn more than they could as wage earners, with wage earners confirming the observations. However, a combination of family and business constraints and shocks may hinder their ambitions, ability to act on their goals, and realization of those goals. That said, two-thirds of micro-enterprise owners said they would accept a wage job if it offered wages on par with their current earnings. This suggests that households will continue to prefer firm ownership in the short run until structural transformation can improve earning potential of wage employment in the long term. The results suggest that household enterprise owners require a dual policy approach: one that improves current enterprise conditions while advancing longer-term structural reforms to expand access to quality wage employment. |
| Date: | 2025–10–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11235 |
| By: | Mauro Lanati; Rainer Thiele |
| Abstract: | Research on the nexus between development and migration has mainly focused on cross-border flows. How income changes affect migration within developing countries is much less well researched even though addressing this topic might provide essential information about the process of structural transformation needed for economic development. In this paper, we provide new evidence on the link between income growth and internal migration for Malawi, one of the poorest countries worldwide where migration is predominantly internal. Employing a gravity approach and performing an instrumental variable regression based on a shift-share instrument, we robustly find that, on average, rising incomes – proxied by changes in nightlight intensity – are associated with higher emigration rates. This effect is mainly driven by people emigrating from comparably richer urban areas. In the poorer rural districts, by contrast, migration tends to fall with increasing economic activity, which is in accordance with the notion that poverty may force people to leave their home in response to negative shocks. Our results also suggest a specific sorting pattern by education levels: While in urban areas rising incomes mainly facilitate the emigration of lower-skilled people to non-urban destinations, in rural areas it is higher-skilled people who most likely leave their home in response to falling incomes. |
| Keywords: | Economic development; Internal Migration; Malawi; Sub-Saharan Africa |
| JEL: | O55 R23 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2025_15.rdf |
| By: | Forkuo, Gabriel Osei; Emmanuel, Osei-Dwomoh; Nkuah, Joseph Kofi |
| Abstract: | This study explored the critical relationship between corporate governance practices and the incidence of bank failures in Ghana, a key issue for the nation's financial stability and economic resilience. While Ghana's banking sector has undergone significant modernization, recent high-profile bank failures have cast doubt on the effectiveness of existing governance and regulatory frameworks. This research quantitatively investigates how core governance factors—specifically board composition, risk management, and regulatory compliance—influence bank stability. Analyzing data from 30 banks, the study employs descriptive, correlation, and regression analyses to assess governance practices and their linkage to financial distress indicators. The findings reveal a significant relationship between board independence, robust risk management, regulatory compliance, and a reduced likelihood of bank failure. Notably, a higher proportion of independent directors and stronger adherence to regulatory and corporate governance codes are associated with lower non-performing loan ratios and fewer regulatory interventions. These results highlight persistent gaps in governance that contribute to financial distress and underscore the necessity of strengthening Ghana's banking oversight. The study provides valuable, evidence-based insights for policymakers, regulators, and banking institutions on enhancing governance frameworks to prevent future crises and foster a more resilient financial sector. |
| Keywords: | Corporate Governance, Bank Failures, Financial Stability, Board Composition, Regulatory Compliance, Risk Management, Ghana |
| JEL: | E3 E31 E32 E52 E58 E6 E61 E63 E66 G2 G20 G21 G22 G23 G24 G28 H5 |
| Date: | 2025–10–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126358 |
| By: | Ramaharo, Franck M. |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the asymmetric relationship between tourism development and economic growth in Madagascar using the Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) model and annual data spanning 1984-2024. Our analysis reveals a statistically significant, long-run asymmetric impact. Negative changes in tourist arrivals exert a substantially stronger adverse effect on economic growth than the positive effect of equivalent increases. Furthermore, we investigate both symmetric and asymmetric causal linkages between tourism and economic growth. The symmetric causality analysis detects neither bidirectional nor unidirectional causality. This result, therefore, provides support for the neutrality hypothesis in Madagascar. However, the asymmetric causality test uncovers unidirectional effects running from economic growth to tourism. Specifically, positive shocks to economic growth Granger-cause subsequent negative shocks to tourism, while negative shocks to economic growth Granger-cause subsequent positive shocks to tourism. This pattern, which is consistent with the asymmetric conservation hypothesis, along with our empirical findings, collectively cautions against treating tourism as a primary engine of economic growth in Madagascar. Instead, our results highlight tourism's vulnerability to macroeconomic and financial instability and underscore the need for policies that stabilize the broader economy to ensure sustained tourism performance. |
| Keywords: | tourism development; economic growth; financial development; Madagascar; asymmetric analysis; Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag modeling |
| JEL: | L83 O16 O47 |
| Date: | 2025–10–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:126422 |
| By: | Aditya Khemka; Christina Laskaridis; Dimitrios P. Tsomocos |
| Abstract: | In transitioning from coal-dependent growth to a low-carbon economy, South Africa faces intertwined environmental, macro-financial and distributional risks. We build a two-period computable general equilibrium model with heterogeneous households, firms and a dual-tier banking system, embedding endogenous default, brown and green capital markets and a pollution-damage feedback. After calibrating to South African data, we compare three instruments downstream carbon taxes, brown risk-weighted capital surcharges and green capital discounts individually and jointly. Carbon taxation most sharply curbs emissions and, when revenues are rebated to workers, also narrows wealth and consumption inequality. Brown penalising factors restrain leverage and reduce default probabilities but raise energy prices and widen wage inequality; green supporting factors lower financing costs yet trigger a Jevons-type rebound that can increase coal demand. Welfare decompositions show that no single tool dominates; the optimal approach involves pairing a carbon tax with prudential tweaks that balance climate gains, stability and equity for South Africa. |
| Date: | 2025–10–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rbz:wpaper:11090 |