Biased beliefs about future labor-market earnings are commonplace. Based on a longitudinal survey of graduate work transitions in Mozambique, this study assesses the contribution of employment mismatches to a large positive gap between expected (ex-ante) and realized (ex post) earnings....

Definitions of catch-up growth in anthropometric outcomes among young children vary across studies. This paper distinguishes between catch-up in the mean of a group toward that of a healthy reference population versus catch-up within the group, associated with a narrowing of the outcome...

Inequalities in the opportunity to obtain a good education in low-income countries are widely understood to be related to household resources and schooling quality. Yet, to date, most researchers have investigated the contributions of these two factors separately. This paper considers them...

Firm turnover (i.e., firm entry and exit) is a well-recognized source of sector-level productivity growth. In contrast, the role and importance of firms that switch activities from one sector to another is not well understood. Firm switchers are likely to be unique, differing from both newly...

In this paper we first validate the use of the synthetic panels technique in the context of the 2014/15 intra-year panel survey data for Mozambique, and then apply the same technique to the 1996/97, 2002/03, 2008/09, and 2014/15 cross-sectional household budget surveys for the same country. We...

Why is there so little industry in Africa? Over the past forty years, industry and business interests have moved increasingly from the developed to the developing world, yet Africa's share of global manufacturing has fallen from about 3 percent in 1970 to less than 2 percent in 2014. Industry is...

What are the macroeconomic prospects for South Africa until the new millennium? Two methods of macroeconomic modelling, associated with the World Bank and IMF, are used here to generate three scenarios, based on moderately optimistic projections. The methodology used can be applied to other...

For a growing number of countries in Africa the discovery and exploitation of natural resources is a great opportunity, but one accompanied by considerable risks. This book presents research on how to better manage the revenues and opportunities associated with natural resources.

This volume provides a comprehensive analytic contribution to a crucial topic within development economics based on 15 years of continued data collection and research efforts. It brings together nine up-to-date studies on SME development in a coherent framework to help persuade national and...

Inequality has emerged as a key development challenge. It holds implications for economic growth and redistribution and translates into power asymmetries that can endanger human rights, create conflict, and embed social exclusion and chronic poverty. For these reasons, it underpins intense...