This paper questions the effect of democracy on regulatory reforms by mainly checking whether the observed differences between the transition economies and the rest of the economies in terms of engaged reforms are related to the level of democracy. Our results, based primarily on the Oaxaca -...

We investigate the effects of financial development on recession while controlling for potential recession factors using data of about 129 countries covering the 1990-2010 period. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study examining this relationship using a plural and innovative...

The paper investigates the structure and dynamics of consumption inequality and inequality of opportunity in Tanzania. The analysis covers the period 2001 to 2012. It reveals moderate and declining levels of consumption inequality at the national level, but increasing inequalities between...

Although access to reliable electricity enables manufacturing companies to increase their output, there have been few studies of the distribution of output growth between export and domestic markets. Although some papers have examined the impact of electricity reliability on exports (in volume...

This paper explores the stabilisation properties of fiscal policy in Malaysia using a model incorporating nonlinearities into the dynamic relationship between fiscal policy and real economic activity over the growth cycle. The paper also investigates how output multipliers for government...

In a large cross-country sample of manufacturing establishments drawn from 188 cities, average exports per establishment are smaller for African firms than for businesses in other regions. The authors show that this is mainly because, on average, African firms face more adverse economic...

The authors test two alternative models of learning to export: productivity learning, whereby firms learn to reduce production cost, and, market learning, whereby firms learn to design products that appeal to foreign consumers. Using panel, and cross-section data on Moroccan manufacturers, the...

Manufacturing has made an important contribution to raising living standards in many parts of the world. Concerns about premature deindustrialization have made some observers skeptical about the potential for manufacturing to play this role in Africa. But employment in African manufacturing has...

This book examines the role for natural resource wealth in driving Africa's economic transformation and the implications of the low-carbon transition for resource-rich economies. Resource wealth remains central to most Sub-Saharan African economies, and significant untapped potential is in the...

This paper identifies and estimates the impact of firm entry and exit on plant-level productivity in Ethiopia as part of a selection mechanism that might be driving aggregate productivity growth in cities. Specifically, the paper investigates how firms' entry and exit contribute to the pace of...