It is clear that a lot remains to be learnt about the role of the financial sector in African growth and development process. All three papers in this volume focus on the existing consensus in the literature that there seems to be a positive relationship between financial development and...

Financial liberalisation is widely seen as key to promoting financial development and unlocking growth in developing countries. While this thesis has been backed by an extensive literature, we show that it rests on weak theoretical and empirical foundations. Data for Sub-Saharan Africa reinforce...

This paper studies factors that influence child health in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau. This environment is characterised by high infant mortality, but not by malnutrition. We show that although maternal education is important in determining child health and mortality this effect...

In many African countries, large discrepancies exist between revenues implied by published tariff rates multiplied by estimated import volumes and actual receipts. We develop a stylised trade model where average and marginal tariff rates diverge and incorporate insights from this model into a...