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on Africa |
| By: | Klaus Desmet; Dávid Krisztián Nagy; Esteban Rossi-Hansberg |
| Abstract: | This paper studies how human capital shapes the economic geography of development. We propose a model in which human capital acquisition costs vary across space, and regions with higher human capital invest more in human-capital-augmenting technology. Locations are interconnected through costly migration and trade. Using data on local income and schooling, we quantify the model at a 1° x 1° resolution globally. Over two centuries, the model mostly predicts persistence in the spatial distribution of development. Proportionally lowering education costs in sub-Saharan Africa raises local outcomes but lowers global welfare, while the same policy in Latin America improves global welfare. An alternative policy that equalizes educational costs across sub-Saharan Africa generates worse outcomes, as population shifts within the region toward less productive areas. These results are driven by the estimated negative correlation between education costs and local fundamentals, as well as spatial inefficiencies due to externalities. |
| Keywords: | human capital; geography; development; education policy; global inequality; dynamic spatial models |
| JEL: | E24 F10 I24 J24 O11 O18 O33 R12 R23 |
| Date: | 2026–09–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:feddwp:103849 |
| By: | Bismark Aha (Nottingham Trent University); Abubakar Sadiq Abass (METU - Middle East Technical University [Ankara]); Philip Kofi Alimo (LAET - Laboratoire Aménagement Économie Transports - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENTPE - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Richmond Juvenile Ehwi (Oxford Brookes University) |
| Abstract: | Access to adequate housing is fundamental to wellbeing and sustainable development, yet systematic measurement of multidimensional housing quality and its spatial distribution is limited across many rapidly urbanising countries in the Global South. This paper develops a Multidimensional Housing Quality Index (MHQI) using household-level microdata from Ghana's 2021 Population and Housing Census (N = 836, 515) and combines it with the Alkire–Foster framework to assess the prevalence, spatial distribution and correlates of housing quality and deprivation. The MHQI integrates nine binary adequacy indicators across structural quality, sufficient living space, access to essential services, and sanitation and hygiene. The index is constructed by applying principal component analysis to the tetrachoric correlation matrix of the binary indicators to produce empirically derived adequacy weights. The national mean MHQI is 62.2 on a 0–100 scale, but this masks substantial inequalities: urban households score 73.1 compared with 45.3 in rural areas, and the inter-regional gap exceeds 42 points. The Alkire–Foster framework classifies 56.5% of households as housing poor and 37.2% as severely housing poor, with inadequate waste disposal, polluting cooking fuel and unimproved sanitation constituting the most widespread deficits. District-level MHQI scores show strong positive spatial autocorrelation (Moran's I > 0.71, p < 0.001), indicating clustered deprivation. Wealth, education and urban residence are identified as the strongest correlates of housing quality. The study provides a transferable measurement framework for countries where census or nationally representative household surveys contain comparable housing indicators. The findings support a shift from aggregate deficit narratives towards district-level prioritisation of specific housing deficits that drive deprivation in each locality. |
| Keywords: | Housing quality, Multidimensional poverty, Spatial inequality, Urban–rural disparities, Housing policy, Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05735436 |
| By: | Jing-Rong Zeng (Paris School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | Can international peacekeeping produce durable peace? I study United Nations peacekeeping deployments across Africa from 1994 to 2020 using a geocoded panel of peacekeeper locations and conflict events. Because local deployment is non-absorbing and varies over time, I use difference-in-differences estimators that accommodate heterogeneous treatment effects and changes in treatment status. Peacekeeper deployment is followed by a large and persistent decline in the probability of local conflict. By contrast, conflict-related fatalities decline initially but increase at longer horizons, revealing a divergence between the incidence and severity of violence. The longer-run increase in fatalities is concentrated in state-based conflict, while the initial decline is more pronounced for one-sided violence. I find limited evidence of sustained improvements in nighttime lights. Complementary evidence from MONUSCO’s 2013 offensive mandate in the Democratic Republic of the Congo shows lower total and non-civilian-targeted fatalities in locations with peacekeeper bases. The findings show that the effects of peacekeeping differ across dimensions of violence and evolve substantially over time. |
| Keywords: | Peacekeeping, Conflict Resolution, Nighttime Lights, Event Study, Dynamic Treatment Effects |
| JEL: | C23 D74 F53 |
| Date: | 2026–09–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ctl:louvir:2026016 |
| By: | Ahmed, Hardi; de Walque, Damien B. C. M.; Lopez, Carolina |
| Abstract: | The generational evolution of gender gaps in education in Sub-Saharan Africa remains poorly documented at the regional scale. This paper uses micro data from Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys from 35 countries (approximately 736, 000 individuals), complemented by international educational assessment and monitoring program (managed by the Conference of Ministers of Education of French-Speaking Countries) test scores for 14 francophone countries. The paper traces gender differences in educational attainment and learning by birth cohort. The findings show that attainment gaps narrow sharply across cohorts: the female disadvantage falls from 13–15 percentage points in primary and secondary attendance and 1.9 years of schooling among those born in the 1970s to far smaller values among the most recent cohorts, and it is statistically insignificant across most of the youngest birth cohorts. Among those born after 1999, females exceed males in secondary attendance and years of education in a majority of countries. However, convergence is uneven. It partly reflects stagnation in boys’ secondary attendance rather than female gains; learning gaps show no uniform direction across countries and often run counter to attainment; and wider attainment gaps persist among rural, poorer, and Muslim populations. |
| Date: | 2026–09–16 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11455 |
| By: | Nicolás Caso; Jason Gagnon; Jessica Hagen-Zanker |
| Abstract: | Remittances and social protection programmes have become two of the most important sources of financial support for households across low- and middle-income countries. While both have been linked to household investment and livelihood diversification, little is known about how they jointly influence entrepreneurship. This paper examines whether public transfers, in the form of cash transfers and school feeding support, crowd out or in household entrepreneurship and whether private transfers, in the form of remittances, complement or substitute for public transfers in shaping entrepreneurship. Using household survey data from eight communities in West Africa, we analyse the relationship between social protection, remittances and a range of entrepreneurial outcomes. The results provide little evidence that social protection systematically influences household entrepreneurship or alters the relationship between remittances and business activity. In contrast, remittances remain consistently associated with business creation and entrepreneurial intentions across multiple contexts. These findings suggest that expanding social protection does not diminish the productive role of remittances and highlight the importance of considering public and private sources of household support jointly when assessing policies aimed at promoting entrepreneurship and inclusive economic development. |
| JEL: | F24 L26 I38 O12 H53 |
| Date: | 2026–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rug:rugwps:26/1152 |