The study sets out to measure how the taxation of dividend and debt affects firm value. Tax hypothesis predicts that firm value is negatively related to dividends and positively related to debt. The study covered 1197 firm-year observations of manufacturing firms in Nigeria from 1984 to 2000. To...

Based on panel data we find that the inequality-growth relationship follows an ordinary-U curve during the period 1970-1998, in which inequality first decreases and then increases with economic growth. We also find some evidence that the increasing pattern of inequality may reverse at higher...

This paper studies the role of financial market imperfections in the way countries' exports react to a currency depreciation. Using quarterly data for 27 developed and developing countries over the period 1990-2005, we show that the impact of a depreciation will be less positive - or even...

Acknowledging that the agricultural sector can play an important role as an engine of pro-poor growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, the purpose of this paper is to identify the factors that influence the political willʺ of governments to support this sector. The concept of political resourcesʺ from...

We examine the impact that financial development had on earnings inequality in Brazil in the 1980’s and 90’s. The empirical evidence, based on panel time series and time series data, shows that more broad access to financial and credit markets had a significant and robust effect in reducing...

The paper explores the linkage between income growth rates and foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows. So far the evidence is rather mixed, as no robust relationship between FDI and income growth has been established. We argue that countries need a sound business environment in the form of good...

The literature suggests that in developing countries illness shocks at the household level can have a negative and severe impact on household income. Few studies have so fare examined the effects of mortality. The major difference between illness and mortality shocks is that a death of a...

Households in developing countries are frequently hit by severe idiosyncratic and covariate shocks resulting in high consumption volatility. A household's currently observed poverty status might therefore not be a good indicator of the household's general poverty risk, or in other words its...

It is frequently suggested that export diversification contributes to an acceleration of growth in developing countries. Horizontal export diversification into completely new export sectors may generate positive externalities on the rest of the economy as export oriented sectors gain from...

Theoretical analyses of industrial policy normally restrict the range of possible outcomes by abstracting from either market or government failures. This paper thus studies industrial policy and its effectiveness in a model that includes both market and government imperfections. We introduce a...