This study presents the macroeconomic context of sub-Saharan Africa and gives an overview of current developments and trends in the region’s banking sector. In addition, it discusses challenges to and opportunities for further development of the sub-Saharan African banking sector, including...

This study explains why increased access to finance remains a top policy priority across the Mediterranean countries. Banks in the region are considered sound. They attract savings and are generally stable. Still, to provide a substantial contribution to growth, they could play a stronger role...

In the wake of the crisis, the capacity of many banks to lend to relatively high-risk sectors such as SMEs and young, innovative firms is seriously impaired by capital constraints and a strong deterioration in the quality of the assets on their balance sheets. Looking forward, it is vital that...

Die vorliegende Studie schließt an unsere vorangegangene Untersuchung "Bankdienstleistungen in afrikanischen Ländern südlich der Sahara - Herausforderungen und Chancen" aus dem Jahr 2013 an. Ihr Ziel ist es, über die jüngsten Entwicklungen und Trends im Bankensektor in Subsahara-Afrika zu...

Background: The article develops an eight-period game between N persons and a pharmaceutical company. The choices of a donor and Nature are parametric. Methods: Persons choose between safe and risky behavior, and whether or not to buy drugs. The pharmaceutical company chooses whether or not to...

This paper presents evidence on the making of the middle class in Africa by exploiting a comparable micro data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) for thirty-seven countries over two decades consisting of over seven hundred thousand household histories. We constructed a pseudo-panel to...

Since mid-2000s, Ethiopia has been one of the fastest growing countries in the world. However, productive entrepreneurship in high-value added activities has made limited contributions to this growth, in part because of a weak business environment. Moreover, the low-productive firms in the...

With the year 2015 – the MDG finishing line – approaching, post-2015 goals as they impact Africa need to be firmed. The goal of ending extreme poverty remains paramount. Globally, the World Bank set goals to end extreme poverty by 2030 and to promote shared prosperity in every society. We...

The shortages of entrepreneurial skills have lowered search effectiveness of potential young entrepreneurs and the rate of youth start-ups. Our paper contributes to closing a gap in the entrepreneurship and development literature with a model of costly firm creation and skill differences between...

Zimbabwe faces growth and external competitiveness challenges, as indicated by its low trend growth and investment, declining share in the world exports, high current account deficits, and external debt. The stock-flow approach to the equilibrium exchange rate reveals that the real exchange rate...