Diasporans can contribute to the development of their home countries by investing their capital in existing businesses and/or setting up new ventures in their countries-of-origin. This paper analyzes whether these growingly important investors differ from domestic firms and foreign investors in...

We estimate the impact of aggregate indicators of “soft” and “hard” infrastructure on the export performance of developing countries. We derive four new indicators for more than 100 countries over the period 2004–07. Estimates show that trade facilitation reforms do improve the export...

Decomposition of real commodity prices suggests four super cycles during 1865–2010 ranging between 30 and 40years with amplitudes 20–40% higher or lower than the long-run trend. Non-oil price super-cycles follow world GDP, indicating they are essentially demand-determined; causality runs in...

This article investigates the relationship between global liquidity and commodity and food prices applying a global cointegrated vector-autoregressive model. We use different measures of global liquidity and various indices of commodity and food prices for the period 1980–2011. Our results...

Reducing postharvest losses (PHL) is a key pathway to food and nutrition security in sub-Saharan Africa. However, knowledge of PHL magnitudes is limited. A meta-analysis has been conducted to expose nature and magnitude of PHL, and the kinds of interventions that have been attempted to mitigate...

This study from Madagascar exploits local variation in the timing and organization of colonial settlement and missionary education to distinguish long-run effects of colonial institutions and human capital. Results indicate that only colonial institutions had robust impacts on local economic...

Efforts to expand primary education have shifted from a policy focus on supply (building schools) to demand-side policies. Human capital theory posits that common demand-side obstacles are high direct costs, opportunity costs, and low perceived benefits—constructs that are difficult to measure...

Do targeted aid programs have unintended consequences outside of the target issue area? We investigate this question with an examination of one of the largest targeted aid programs in the world: the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Critics of PEPFAR worry that a targeted...

Given Africa’s challenge of feeding a growing population, narrowing yield gaps is an efficient way of raising production under covariate constraints. Using household panel data from 21 regions in eight sub-Saharan African countries, this article unravels the determinants of yield gaps. It also...

Despite some progress in the last decade, Sub-Saharan Africa’s participation in the global economy remains generally limited and poorly diversified. Among the various reasons behind the lack of competitiveness of Sub-Saharan Africa exports, this paper analyzes whether changes in market access...