|
on Africa |
| By: | Coad, Alex (Waseda Business School, Waseda University, Japan); Domnick, Clemens (Joint Research Centre, European Commission); Naudé, Wim (RWTH Aachen University); Santoleri, Pietro (Joint Research Centre, European Commission); Srhoj, Stjepan (University of Split, Croatia) |
| Abstract: | This paper critically examines the Africa Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Index (AEEI) introduced by Stam et al. (2026) in World Development. We identify a series of technical, mathematical, and empirical problems in the construction and interpretation of the index. At the technical level, the paper contains inconsistent notation, equation-level errors, and ambiguities in the definition of key quantities. At the empirical level, the AEEI suffers from important representational limitations, including the exclusion of roughly half of African countries, the combination of indicators drawn from very different time windows, and reliance on data sources whose coverage may reflect platform visibility as much as underlying entrepreneurial activity. The data released by the authors raise questions about the reproducibility of the results, including issues with published rankings, variable construction and country coverage. and treatment of missing values. Finally, we document concerns regarding the paper’s text lifting and lack of engagement with prior criticism. The paper calls into question the usefulness of the AEEI as a scientifically rigorous measure of entrepreneurial ecosystems suitable for comparative analysis and policy use. |
| Keywords: | entrepreneurial ecosystems, Africa, composite indices, replication studies |
| JEL: | L26 C43 O55 B41 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18774 |
| By: | Boone, Catherine; Mugisha, Michael Buteera |
| Abstract: | Even after economic liberalization in the 1990s, the role of the state in Africa’s traditional tropical commodity export sectors has remained extensive. This paper argues that post-liberalization, these patterns of state regulation have often been shaped by the pressures and incentives of partisan politics, just as they were in earlier decades. We compare and contrast the changing institutional structure and patterns of state regulation in four agricultural commodity export sectors: Côte d'Ivoire-cocoa, Ghana-cocoa, Kenya-coffee, and Uganda-coffee. In spite of important differences, all four sectors are critical in providing resources, organizational structure, and policy mechanisms for building and maintaining electoral and other forms of political support for historically powerful political parties and/or power contenders. Post-1990s, each of the four cases presents an alternative pattern of alignment between export-sector organizations and partisan politics. Comparison across cases reveals the depth and variety of the ways in which domestic politics in African countries, including electoral politics, can shape state intervention in commodity chains for agro-exports, even in the neoliberal era. One implication for development studies is that domestic political and partisan dynamics are likely to continue to influence how governments use their “policy space” in supply chain governance in the future. |
| Keywords: | Africa;party politics;export commodites;Kenya;Uganda;Cote d'Ivoire |
| JEL: | N0 L81 |
| Date: | 2026–11–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:140307 |
| By: | Sanoh Yusuf (Graduate School of Economics, The University of Osaka) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the causal impact of financial inclusion on household welfare in West Africa by analyzing consumption diversification using Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS) data from the World Bank on 51, 851 households across seven countries of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). Instrumental Variables (IV) and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) were used for causal inference. The findings show that financial inclusion operates through distinct channels: it promotes food expenditure concentration via quality upgrading, expands non-food consumption into areas such as education and health, and induces structural reallocation from food to non-food budgets, with effects varying by financial modality. The results demonstrate that formal banking and microfinance drive long-term structural change. In contrast, mobile banking primarily facilitates short-term liquidity, offering targeted policy insights for enhancing financial inclusion strategies in the region. |
| Keywords: | Financial Inclusion, Theil entropy, consumption diversification, welfare, West Africa. |
| JEL: | G21 O16 I32 D12 O55 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:2610 |
| By: | Motloutsi, Veronica; Viriri, Serestina; Samuels, Alexander |
| Abstract: | Digital transformation is widely presented as a pathway to financial inclusion, entrepreneurial growth, and sustainable development, yet its developmental effects remain uneven in emerging economies. This tension is particularly evident in South Africa’s fintech entrepreneurial ecosystem, where a relatively sophisticated financial sector and expanding digital innovation coexist with persistent inequality, skills shortages, fragmented institutional support, and regulatory complexity. Existing digital transformation research has largely focused on firm-level adoption, business model innovation, and technology-enabled change, offering limited explanation of how broader ecosystem conditions shape sustainable development outcomes in contexts such as South Africa. In response, this article develops a Critical Realist Digital Transformation Capacity Framework to explain how digital transformation may contribute to sustainable development within South Africa’s fintech entrepreneurial ecosystem. Drawing on digital transformation theory, capacity development theory, entrepreneurial ecosystem scholarship, and critical realism, the article argues that digital transformation is not a self-executing technological process but a contextually mediated and capacity-dependent phenomenon. It identifies institutional capacity, human capacity, and policy capacity as the key generative mechanisms through which digital technologies may support financial inclusion, ecosystem resilience, entrepreneurial participation, and broader economic development. By integrating these literatures, the article extends global information technology scholarship beyond technology-centric and firm-level accounts and offers an African-centred, mechanism-based explanation of digitally enabled development. The framework provides a conceptual foundation for future empirical research and a diagnostic lens for policymakers, regulators, and ecosystem actors in South Africa and other emerging-market settings. The study contributes to information systems theory by introducing Digital Transformation Capacity as a higher-order theoretical construct that explains how institutional, human, and policy capacities mediate the relationship between digital transformation and sustainable development. |
| Date: | 2026–07–22 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:87vbp_v2 |
| By: | Leandro De Magalhães; Anna Brian |
| Abstract: | Using newly digitized election results and a name-matching algorithm that tracks individual candidates across elections, we provide the first systematic estimates of the effect of winning a legislative seat on re-running in the next election across 17 African countries and 86 elections (1963–2024). Getting back on the ballot is the first gate to re-election. Incumbent re-running rates average 47%, turnover averages around 70%, and barely winning raises the probability of re-running by a median of 21 percentage points and of winning the next election by only 9—far below the US and the UK, where re-running is near-universal, turnover is far lower, and incumbency effects on re-running and winning are far larger. We look at country specific academic literature, news sources, cross-country comparisons of indexes of parliamentary power, and text analysis of Hansard parliamentary activity to study the mechanism through which re-running is determined. The results are mostly consistent with re-running suppression by the executive. Monitoring incumbent re-nomination rates may help evaluate elections before a single ballot is cast. |
| Date: | 2026–01–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bri:uobdis:26/842 |
| By: | Awuah, John; Sackey, Lawrence; Nortah-Ocansey, Derick Ayiku; Mensah, Daniel |
| Abstract: | Non-performing loans (NPLs) remain a central and persistent vulnerability within Ghana's banking sector, with significant implications for financial stability, bank performance, and the sector's ability to support economic growth. Although the 2017-2018 banking sector clean-up led by the Bank of Ghana restored confidence and strengthened capital positions in the short term, empirical evidence indicates that it did not deliver a sustained reduction in underlying credit risk. A paired sample t-test shows that average NPL levels in the post-clean-up period are significantly higher than in the pre-reform period (p |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:gabpbs:342565 |