Conventional wisdom has that peripheral economies had to `play by the rules of the game` under the Classical Gold Standard (1870s-1914), while core countries could get away with frequent violations. Drawing on the experience of three core economies (England, France, Germany) and seven peripheral...

This paper investigates whether public investments that led to improvements in road quality and increased access to agricultural extension services led to faster consumption growth and lower rates of poverty in rural Ethiopia. Using a Generalized Methods of Moments-Instrumental...

We review the evidence on risk and its consequences in Africa. We argue that too much attention has been given to the risk management and coping mechanisms used by households, and not enough on its implications and the scope for interventions. Much of the empirical work on risk in developing...

South Africa has overcome adverse initial conditions to achieve a remarkable fiscal transformation since the 1994 democratic elections, held amid uncertainty about its ability to maintain the rule of law and resist populist spending pressures. Constitutionally-based, durable and credible fiscal...

Evolving openness to trade is hard to measure, despite its relevance to models of growth, inflation and exchange rates. Our innovative technique measures trade openness encompassing both observable trade policy (tariffs and surcharges) and unobservable trade policy (quotas and other non-tariff...

Based on original trader surveys, this paper examines how agricultural traders operate in Benin and Malawi. Results indicate that the largest transactions costs are search and transport. The use of modern technology is limited. Search methods rely principally on personal visits by the trader....

This paper examines oil-dependence and civil conflict in Nigeria focusing on the economic dynamics of resource-induced conflicts. It identifies two dimensions to oil-related civil conflict in the country. The first is the violent rent-seeking political violence that oil-availability generates...

Poverty is still a predominantly rural phenomenon. However, the context of rural poverty is rapidly changing across the world, with high growth in some economies and stagnation in others. Furthermore, increased openness in many economies has affected the necessity of agricultural growth for...