The paper shows that civil war in Burundi in the 1990s has provoked an unprecedented decline in government revenue. Both foreign aid transfers and revenue from domestic sources dried up, inducing the government to rely more on inflation tax. Using quarterly data covering the period from 1980:1...

The theory of policy credibility has been influential in both the design of monetary policymaking institutions and in the implementation of policy. In particular, the idea that `reputation` is important has been widely accepted. However, careful attention to its assumptions and implications of...

Exports of labour-intensive manufactures from sub-Saharan Africa are negligible with the exception of Mauritius. Such exports from Ghana are low relative to other sub-Saharan African countries and relative to what would be predicted by its factor endowment. Firm level data from the two countries...

This paper examines the optimal structure of hierarchies when workers differ in the range of tasks they can perform. A hierarchical system may reduce costs by allowing most tasks to be handled by unskilled workers. This may however increase delay for those tasks which must pass through several...

This paper undertakes an empirical analysis of the effects of the threat of takeover on company performance, based on a panel of 643 nonfinancial quoted UK companies over the period 1989-96. Our measure of the intensity of the threat of takeover is the predicted probability of takeover estimated...

In Bangladesh, as in many developing countries, there is a widespread belief amongst the public, policymakers and social workers that children `abandon` their families and migrate to the street because of economic poverty. This dominant narrative posits that children whose basic material needs...

Major changes in the Norwegian exchange rate have often coincided with large fluctuations in the price of crude oil. Previous empirical studies have however suggested a weak and ambiguous relation between the oil price and the exchange rate. In contrast to these studies, this paper explores the...

The role of financial institutions and corporate governance in the conduct and performance of industrial firms, especially in the area of technological innovation and international competition has been hotly debated in the recent past. The results presented here are a contribution to the...

An experiment on choices between single and compound lotteries is presented, and results are calibrated with neural network models. Many subjects tend to average out probabilities, though behaviour becomes more rational with more exposure to compound lotteries in the practice stage. The Prior...