Corruption in customs administrations is a major problem in many African countries. Data from the period 1990-96 are used to examine several hypotheses concerning the determinants of customs fraud in Senegal and Mali. Statistical tests using product-by-product data support the widely held view...

Egypt needs to diversify exports further in order to emerge from its isolation and to draw the maximum advantage from the growth potential offered by trade globalisation. To what extent does the bilateral free trade agreement with the European Union encourage the transition from a rentier...

This paper presents an overview of the evolution of exchange-rate regimes in Africa and then attempts to assess empirically the impact of exchange-rate policy on manufactured export performance on a panel of major Sub-Saharan Africa countries over the 1970-92 period. We examine the impact of...

The signature of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement), which entered into force on 1st January, 1995, marked a turning point in efforts to strengthen and extend intellectual property protection. Under the terms of the Agreement, many developing...

The recent currency crises in Latin America and Asia have hit countries with strong macroeconomic fundamentals but weak domestic financial systems. Private capital flows, attracted by disorderly financial liberalisation and exchange rate pegs, reversed abruptly when financial-sector weaknesses...

In recent years, as China’s reform of state–owned enterprises (SOEs) has gathered momentum, the number of workers made redundant has been rising. Until now, the dismissals have affected only a fraction of the “surplus labour”, which has been estimated at 20–25 per cent of total...

This paper examines the growth performance of Indian States during 1970-94. We, first, propose a grouping of States according to differences in the availability of physical, social, and economic infrastructure, using principal components analysis. Then, combining principal components analysis...

We present estimates, at the State level, of Indian manufacturing Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and Technical Efficiency (TE) from the estimation of production functions for 17 manufacturing industries from 1976 to 1992. Our analysis relates TFP and TE to the availability of infrastructure. We...

Large current account deficits are often assumed to play an important role in the propagation of financial crises in emerging markets in receipt of heavy private capital inflows. This paper reaches some major conclusions. <I>First</I>, the Lawson Doctrine — according to which current account deficits...</i>

How and to what extent can a high degree of global financial integration help the fast-ageing OECD benefit from the delayed ageing process in the non-OECD area? The question is being raised with increasing urgency as it is slowly understood that even fully funded pension schemes will not escape...