The East African Community (EAC) economic integration has gained momentum recently, with the EAC countries officially aiming to adopt a single currency in the summer of 2012. This paper assesses empirically the readiness of the EAC countries for monetary union. First, structural similarity of...

Food prices rose rapidly in 2007 and in early2008, but started falling during the second halfof 2008. Despite this fall, many African countriesare yet to recover from the severe economicand social strain caused by the suddenescalation of prices. This situation, however,has triggered renewed...

The objective of this paper is to discussmacroeconomic policies that would helpAfrican countries, especially the lowincome countries (LICs), reach strong,sustained and shared growth in the postcrisisworld. The paper first reviews, witha special focus on LICs, macroeconomicpolicies in Africa...

Smallholder agriculture continues to play akey role in African agriculture. This paperinvestigates trends, challenges andopportunities of this sub-sector in EastAfrica through case studies of Kenya,Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania. In theseagriculture-based economies, smallholderfarming accounts...

Twenty years after the launch of market reforms, productive entrepreneurship and vibrant small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Ethiopia remain limited, the recent growth acceleration notwithstanding. This paper first develops a model of entrepreneurial start ups in an economy with...