This paper investigates the existence of local externalities in manufacturing. In contrast to many other studies that focus on aggregate employment growth, we examine the effect of externalities on firm-level productivity and wages. Our empirical results show that agglomeration externalities...

The Ghana cocoa market has been extensively liberalised over the period since the mid 1980s. Three issues have been prominent in microeconomic research on the effects of liberalisation on agriculture. The first has been the size of any supply response, the second has been the effect on producers...

Elasticities of demand and supply for South African manufactured exports are estimated using a vector error correction model in order to address simultaneity and non-stationarity issues. Demand is highly price-elastic, with elasticities ranging from –3 to –6. The...

Using matched employer-employee data on 10 African countries, this paper examines the relationship beween wages, worker supervision, and labor productivity in manufacturing. Wages increase with firm size for both production workers and supervisors. We develop a two-tier model of supervision that...

Recent reforms in most African economies of their trading and exchange rate regimes have eliminated much of the protection which previously limited competition. Despite these reforms, African manufacturing firms remain unsuccessful, particularly in international export markets. In this paper we...

Studies of consumption in early modern Europe fall into two groups. Some have looked at the overall supply of nutritional components to the average consumer in an attempt to trace standards of living. Others have examined the changing demand for particular goods by specific consumers to...

This paper asks under what conditions it is possible for a wildlife department in west Africa without an external budget to protect all rare and endangered species, and if so, what is the impact on rural inhabitants engaged in hunting. Protecting wildlife in this region is particularly tricky....

South Africa adopted inflation targeting in 2000, targeting the consumer price index (CPI) excluding mortgage interest cost (or CPIX), for “metropolitan and urban areasâ€. However, no clear technical account of the methodology of construction of CPI and CPIX is available from Statistics...

We examine the effect of shocks to teacher inputs on child performance in school. We start with a household optimization framework where parents spend optimally in response to teacher and other school inputs. This helps to isolate the impact of teachers from other inputs. As a proxy measure for...

This paper surveys research on social capital. We explore the concepts that motivate the social capital literature, efforts to formally model social capital using economic theory, the econometrics of social capital, and empirical studies of the role of social capital in various socioeconomic...