This paper investigates the relevance of social convention theory (SCT) for explaining the persistence of female genital cutting (FGC) in a broad sample of African countries. While influential in policy circles, the idea that FGC is primarily a bad equilibrium in a social coordination game has...

This paper investigates the explanatory power of social convention theory for explaining the persistence of female genital cutting (FGC) in a broad sample of African countries. While influential in policy circles, the idea that FGC is best described as a bad equilibrium in a social coordination...

Motivated by the lack of sub-national empirical evidence on the relationship between aid and institutional development, this study explores the local effects of World Bank aid on perceived institutional quality in African aid receiving countries. We combine geo-referenced data on the subnational...

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 the politics and institutional characteristics of the countries concerned. In particular, we argue that one important explanation for...