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on Africa |
| By: | Amar, Amine; Antonio, Ronald Jeremy S.; Okou, Cyrille Guei; Pede, Valerien O. |
| Abstract: | Demand for rice in Africa has been steadily increasing due to population and economic growth and changing preferences. However, low production growth has led to major gaps between rice supply and demand leading to import reliance. Given the concerns on long term food security and availability that comes with import reliance, many studies have focused on evaluating how shocks in the global markets and exporting countries are transmitted to import reliant countries. With this development, our paper furthers this endeavour by developing an econometric predictive framework to identify dependency relationships for forecasting purposes, which provides information not only on the relationship between African countries and its import sources, but also how current prices impact future prices. The novelty of our study lies in integrating the Vine Copula into cointegration analysis to forecast future rice prices using monthly time series data from three sub-Saharan African countries between 2018 and 2024. The results demonstrate a high predictive performance from the proposed approach and finds that food insecurity dynamics are both asymmetric and path dependent. Additional insights are obtained through sensitivity and impulse response analyses. |
| Keywords: | Risk and Uncertainty |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea25:360696 |
| By: | Pierre-Philippe Combes (ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research); Clément Gorin (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne); Shohei Nakamura (WBG = GBM - World Bank Group = Groupe Banque Mondiale); Mark Roberts (WBG = GBM - World Bank Group = Groupe Banque Mondiale) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes urbanization patterns across Sub-Saharan Africa circa 2015 using a dartboard algorithm and high-resolution gridded population data to delineate urban areas and urban cores, cities and their population centers, and towns. Key empirical regularities are presented regarding urban hierarchies and internal city structures. Urbanization rates often exceed official ones and vary considerably across countries from 29.4 % in Gabon to 78.1 % in Kenya. Within countries, delineated areas show great size diversity following Zipf's law, without much urban primacy. Cities' land area increases slightly less proportionally to their population. Monocentric population patterns with declining population density toward peripheries largely dominate, though some large multicentric extended, not necessarily capital, cities exist. |
| Keywords: | urbanization Sub-saharan africa Dartboard approach Satellite imagery Population density, Urbanization; Sub-Saharan Africa; Dartboard Approach; Satellite Imagery; Population Density |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05446319 |
| By: | Adrienne Lees; Maria Jouste; Nicholas Musoke; Joseph Okello Ayo |
| Abstract: | The digitalization of tax administration promises improved efficiency and increased tax revenues. In recent years, the information trail of the value-added tax (VAT) has been digitalized in many developing countries. We evaluate the impact of introducing an e-invoicing system in Uganda using administrative tax data in a synthetic difference-in-differences framework. To identify the effects on firms' reporting behaviour, we exploit a policy change that exposed a subset of VAT-registered firms to stricter enforcement of the e-invoicing mandate. |
| Keywords: | Value-added tax, Uganda, Tax administration |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-112 |
| By: | Amin, Mohammad; Islam, Asif Mohammed; Padhi, Debasmita |
| Abstract: | The business practices of unregistered or informal enterprises can significantly affect their performance and the overall productivity of the sector. However, very little is known about the prevalence of business practices and the sorts of factors that influence their adoption among informal enterprises. This is especially the case in the context of fragile economies. The present paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by analyzing the adoption of business practices among informal enterprises in the Central African Republic, which serves as a unique context – high informality, low education attainment, and recurrent shocks including conflict and the AIDS epidemic. While several factors correlated with the decision to adopt business practices are uncovered, the focus is on the education level of the business owner or manager. A conservative estimate suggests that relative to no education or up to primary education, secondary or higher education increases the likelihood of adopting one or more of the nine business practices considered by about 10 percentage points. The number of business practices adopted increases by 0.66 (against a mean value of 1.7). The paper shows that the positive impact of education is most likely causal using entropy balancing, inverse probability weighting, the Oster test for selection on observables, and the impact of the AIDS epidemic in the latter half of the 1990s on school enrollment as an instrument for the education level of current business owners. The analysis also finds significant heterogeneities in the relationship between education and business practices. Belonging to a business association and a business owner’s past experience in the industry may compensate for a lack of formal education, while the use of electricity, manufacturing versus services activity, and location in Bangui city versus Berberati complement and magnify the positive effect of education. The paper discusses several avenues for future research. |
| Date: | 2026–01–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:11280 |
| By: | Ninon Moreau-Kastler (EU Tax Observatory) |
| Abstract: | Can developed countries enforce that goods consumed domestically do not contribute to human rights violations in developing countries where they are sourced? This paper studies the enforcement of new due diligence policies, which constrain firms to curb foreign sourcing linked to human rights violations through transparency and reporting. I study the US Dodd-Frank Act Conflict Mineral Rule (2010), a limiting the use of conflict minerals extracted in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and adjoining countries in supply chains of US eletronic firms. The law increased administrative cost of complying firms, showing that subtantial regulatory constraints were created. I test how diligence obligations shaped exports of targeted countries, and whether they are circumvented through opaque territories called legal havens. Using a triple difference strategy and the structural gravity framework, I find that this policy decreased DRC and adjoining countries’ exports of conflict minerals by 76%. One fourth of this decrease is due to circumvention through legal havens, which then re-export more intensively to countries hosting foreign suppliers of US-regulated firms. |
| Keywords: | trade diversion; legal haven; due diligence; minerals; supply chains |
| JEL: | F14 F63 F59 H73 K33 O13 O24 |
| Date: | 2025–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dbp:wpaper:037 |
| By: | Mohammad H. Sepahvand; Sankar Placide Some; Annika Lindskog; Ann-Sofie Isaksson; Heather Congdon Fors |
| Abstract: | This study analyzes how violent conflict influences taxation in a poor, conflict-affected country, Burkina Faso. We use a unique, large, and representative panel dataset on tax collection of firms between 2015 and 2022 and geographically match these data with indicators of violent conflict at the municipal level. We find that firms pay a lower amount of tax in areas affected by violence. We also find that both turnover and firm survival decrease in areas as they become more insecure. |
| Keywords: | Violent conflict, Business tax, Firms, Burkina Faso |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2025-115 |