In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) the informal sector is a major engine for employment, entrepreneurship and growth. The high incidence of corruption is another distinctive feature of SSA. According to the last Transparency International Corruption Perception Index almost 70% of SSA countries ranked...

The consequences on international trade of country breaks-up have received an increasing attention. This paper investigates the effect of independence on bilateral trade of former French colonies with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. Thanks to an original dataset including data on pre-independence...

Fiscal constraints and policy changes to improve effectiveness of programs in reducing poverty has progressively led the international community to use tools for reaching the poor. Targeting antipoverty interventions is one of them. This paper aims at providing a general review of experiences of...

The fact that crossing a political border dramatically reduces trade flows has been widely documented in the literature. The increasing number of borders has surprisingly attracted much less attention. The number of independent countries has indeed risen from 72 in 1948 to 192 today. This paper...

This paper analyzes the impact of corruption on the extent of trust in political institutions using a rich collection of comparable data provided by the Afrobarometer surveys conducted in 18 sub-Saharan African countries. More specifically, we set out to test the “efficient grease”...

Who are the most prone to pay bribes? Who are angled for bribes? Who pay? This article explores these issues in sub-Saharan Africa, an area of the world where corruption is widespread. This paper empirical basis is a rich collection of comparable data provided by the Afrobarometer surveys...

Public statistics face quite a challenge when it comes to measuring new dimensions of development (institutions, governance and social and political participation). Based on the experience acquired by the 123 survey in Bamako in 2001, the Malian National Statistics Office has appended three...

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect on North South trade of the quality of governance in developing countries by applying a gravity trade model. I test the model for a sample of 21 OECD countries and 95 developing countries over the period 1984-1997. A panel data analysis is used...

The consequences on international trade of colonial rule have received an increasing attention. This paper investigates the effect of independence on trade with a focus on former French colonies. Thanks to an original dataset including data on pre-independence bilateral trade for former French...