The link between ex post discrete shocks and private investment have never been formally tested in a panel data context, while the evidence of a link between ex ante commodity price uncertainty and investment is weak. This paper constructs measures of discrete shocks and uncertainty using a new...

We investigate the question whether firms in the manufacturing sector in Africa are credit constrained. The fact that few firms obtain credit is not sufficient to prove constraints, since certain firms may not have a demand for credit while others may be refused credit as part of profit...

The public faces a choice between two alternatives: the status quo and a comprehensive reform proposal that departs from the status quo in several dimensions. Deliberation over the problem takes the form of a public multi-issue debate. The reformists argue that the proposed reform satisfies...

In this paper we consider the link often alleged between ethnic diversity and the growth rate of GDP per capita. We first assume that it is ethnic polarization rather than ethnic fragmentation that is harmful for growth so that the relationship may be nonlinear. Second, we hypothesize that the...

It has long been believed that commodity price variability causes problems for primaryproducing developing countries, but there is less agreement about which particular manifestations of commodity price movements matter to developing countries. This paper tests the effects of ex post shocks and...

This paper reviews some recent work in which Levy processes are used to model and analyse time series from financial econometrics. A main feature of the paper is the use of positive Ornstein-Unlenbeck (OU) type processes inside stochastic volatility processes. The basic probability theory...

Rural and urban households in developing countries face substantial idiosyncratic and common risk, resulting in high income variability. Households in risky environments have developed sophisticated (ex-ante) risk-management and (ex-post) risk-coping strategies, including self-insurance via...

This paper investigates how the control and devolution of productive assets are allocated among husband and wife. Theory predicts that bargaining power within marriage depends on the division of assets upon divorce (exit option) and on control over assets during marriage (non-cooperative...

In this paper, we use firm-level panel data for the manufacturing sector in four African countries to estimate the effect of exporting on efficiency. Measures of firm-level efficiency using stochastic production frontier models are constructed for the period 1992 to 1995. We find that there are...

To interpret estimates of empirical earnings functions, and to resolve sample selection problems such as tenure bias, the wage determination process must be specified. This paper shows that an earnings function can be interpreted as a wage offer in a labour market auction in which the worker...