Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world; this is largely due to the fact that more than 80% of the total export revenue is generated by the agricultural sector, which represents 36% of the gross domestic product; over eighty percent of the population is engaged in the agricultural...

Three issues are addressed in this paper. First, we use both household and macro data to establish how fast per capita consumption and incomes grew in Ghana in the 1990s. Second, we ask how much of the rise in incomes was due to rises in the level of human capital and how much reflected...

Good leaders are made not born. If you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective leader. Good leaders develop through a never-ending process of self-study, education, training, and experience. To inspire your people into higher levels of teamwork, there are certain things you...

We investigate the causes of civil war, using a new data set of wars during 1960-99. We test a `greed’ theory focusing on the ability to finance rebellion, against a`grievance’ theory focusing on ethnic and religious divisions, political repression and inequality. We find that greed...

Estonia is one of the most rapidly developing information societies in Central and Eastern Europe. Still, 61% of the Estonian adult population does not use the Internet. The analysis, carried out by the research company Emor and PRAXIS Center for Policy Studies, looked thoroughly at the reasons...

La política económica argelina entre 1999 y 2002 ha conseguido unos resultados excelentes en términos de control de las magnitudes macroeconómicas básicas, mejorando sensiblemente la solvencia internacional del país gracias sobre todo al aumento sostenido de los ingresos por exportaciones...

We use a set of established growth models, which simultaneously include human capital and R&D, to show that the effect of mortality rate in human capital accumulation is quantitatively more important than the effect of perfectly guaranteed patents on research. First, we show that the effect of...

Greater economic integration between developing and higher income economies has caused increased 'north-south' business cycle linkages. This study applies a linear transfer function ARIMA approach to analyze regional maquiladora payroll dynamics in a non-border region of Mexico. Statistically...

We analyse the costs of a monetary union in West Africa by means of asymmetric aggregate demand and aggregate supply shocks. Previous studies have estimated the shocks with the VAR model.We discuss the limits of this approach and apply a new technique based on the dynamic factor model.The...

Households in developing countries use a variety of informal mechanisms to cope with risk, including mutual support and risk-sharing. These mechanisms cannot avoid that they remain vulnerable to shocks. Public programs in the form of food aid distribution and food-for-work programs are meant to...