As our trading world becomes more globalized, who benefits and who gets hurt? This paper relies on the Ricardian model to explore the effects of technological improvements in underdeveloped countries on the welfare of developed countries. For example, trading between the United States and China,...

This paper puts sub-Saharan Africa's economic development into perspective. While much did not go as hoped for at independence, much of the region has been on a more promising development trajectory since the mid-1990s, as we illustrate using growth, poverty, and human development indicators. We...

Researchers have linked sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) poor growth performance in recent decades to several factors, including geography, institutions, and low returns to investment. This literature has not yet integrated the research that identifies linkages between gender, economic development,...

There is hardly any study on learning inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic in a low-income, multi-country context. Analyzing 34 longitudinal household and phone survey rounds from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, we find that while countries exhibit...

There is hardly any study on learning inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic in a low-income, multi-country context. Analyzing 34 longitudinal household and phone survey rounds from Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda, we find that while countries exhibit...

This study compares transition processes in countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union (FSU) and sub-Saharan Africa. By widening the scope from most- to least-developed transition economies, the study establishes the importance of a strong state with evolved institutional...

Agriculture is the largest sector in most sub-Saharan economies in terms of employment, and it plays an important role in supplying food and export earnings.  Rural poverty rates remain high, and labor productivity is strikingly low.  This paper asks how these factors shape the role of...

This paper addresses the debate in the literature on how developing countries are affected by foreign monetary policy shocks. I analyze how contractionary monetary policy shocks originating in different regions, specifically the Euro Area (“EU”) and United States (“US”), affect a set of...

The role of agriculture in development remains much debated. This paper takes an empirical perspective and focuses on poverty, as opposed to growth alone. The contribution of a sector to poverty reduction is shown to depend on its own growth performance, its indirect impact on growth in other...

This paper examines the impacts of the financial, food and fuel crises on the livelihoods of low-income households Nigeria. It uses primary household level data from Nigeria to analyse the impacts of induced price variability on household welfare. Our results indicate that aggregate shocks have...