During the global food crisis, Ethiopia experienced an unprecedented increase in inflation, among the highest in Africa. Using monthly data over the past decade, we estimate models of inflation to identify the importance of the factors contributing to CPI inflation and three of its major...

Ethiopia has experienced a historically unprecedented increase in inflation, mainly driven by cereal price inflation, which is among the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using monthly data over the past decade, we estimate error correction models to identify the relative importance of several...

This paper shows how a developing country, Lao PDR, imports high glutinous rice prices by exporting its staple food to neighboring countries, Vietnam and Thailand. Lao PDR has extensive export controls on rice, generating a sizable difference between domestic and international prices. Controls...

Consumers pay a premium for Fair Trade coffee, often assuming that it mainly benefits poor coffee farmers. However, several studies report that most of the premium accrues to actors in the consumer countries, such as roasters and retailers. This paper analyses how the returns to Fair Trade are...

The impact of HIV/AIDS on fertility in sub-Saharan Africa has received attention recently, since changes in population structure can impact on future economic development. We analyze the effect of AIDS on actual and desired fertility in rural Malawi, using data from Malawi 2004 Demographic and...

We investigate the relationship between intimate partner violence (IPV) and HIV among married women using Demographic and Health Survey data from ten sub-Saharan African countries, and find a strong association. The association is due to higher HIV risk among violent men; neither women’s...

Recently there has been a surge in interest on how HIV/AIDS affects fertility in countries hit by the disease. In this study, the effect of communal HIV/AIDS on fertility in rural Malawi is estimated using individual data from the 2004 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey on fertility and the...

In many Sub-Saharan countries the HIV epidemic has spread to over 10% of the working-age population, and is likely to affect economically relevant behaviour. We evaluate the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on the reproductive behaviour for women in Malawi, allowing for a heterogeneous response...

Globalisation or market integration in Sub-Saharan Africa is closely linked to the structural adjustment programmes. In this paper we focus on their dependence on politics and institutional characteristics of the countries concerned. In particular, we argue that one important explanation for the...

This study analyses how changes in factor abundance and trade policy have affected factor prices in Kenya since 1964. First there was a period of capital deepening, but this was reversed from 1982. As a result, there has been a shift of production towards the labour-intensive informal sector....