This study analyses how strengths and weaknesses of economic, societal, political and environmental structures played out during the Covid-19 crisis in Africa since March 2020. Its main aim is to improve evidence on the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic on African countries and, based...

We examine the effects of human-induced desertification on economic growth by exploiting a 56 km-by-56 km grid-cell global dataset on the annual frequency from 1990-2015. We find that areas that experienced large soil aridification are associated with a reduction in GDP per capita. Our results...

On 1 January 2021, the African Union launched the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). This Regional Action Group for Africa report is part of a series investigating five priority pathways to drive economic recovery and build resilience in the context of the AfCFTA Agreement. It...

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...

The research study investigated the economic determinants of economic growth in 34 countries across Africa during a two-decade period (2001–2019). For this purpose, the sample included a wide range of economies, from low income to high income and from low human development to high human...

Opportunities for well-paid employment for women are scarce in many African countries. Entrepreneurship is therefore one way in which women can earn a decent livelihood for themselves and their families. Despite the potential opportunities arising from entrepreneurship, the possibilities are...

This study asks what impact the Fourth Industrial Revolution will have on job creation and catchup development in Sub-Saharan Africa over the coming decade. Can light manufacturing export sectors still serve African development the way they served East Asian development in the past? If factory...

This paper links banking systems development to the colonial and legal history of African countries. Specifically, we investigate the impact of differing legal traditions on the development of existing investor and creditor protection, and on African banking systems. Based on a sample of 40...

This paper links banking systems development to the colonial and legal history of African countries. Specifically, we investigate the impact of differing legal traditions on the development of existing investor and creditor protection, and on African banking systems. Based on a sample of 40...

The Discussion Paper examines the opportunities that the rising industrial wages in China will bring for Africa. China has been the industrial workbench of the global economy for decades. However, its competitive advantages are waning, particularly for labour-intensive assembly activities in the...

Knowledge has emerged as a fundamental driver of economic growth and development by inter alia improving the effectiveness and efficiency of economic projects and boosting the process of finding new avenues of addressing developmental policy syndromes. Recent evidence suggests that Africa is on...

This study improves the African Regional Integration Index (ARII) proposed by the African Union, the African Development Bank and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa by providing a theoretical framework and addressing shortcomings related to weighting and aggregation of the...

Die "Shutdown"-Maßnahmen zur Bekämpfung der Covid-19-Pandemie haben zu einem Preisverfall auf den Rohöl- und Energiemärkten geführt, der erdölexportabhängige Staaten vor existenzielle Herausforderungen stellt. Die drei größten Rohölexporteure Afrikas (Algerien, Angola und Nigeria) sind...

The aim of this paper is to investigate policy instruments by which the persistence of inequality is affected through financial development channels in 48 African countries for the period 1996 - 2014. Financial dynamic channels of depth (money supply and liquid liabilities), efficiency (at...

The impacts of European agricultural and trade policies on agricultural development and food security in Africa are analyzed in this study. The research is prompted by the pending further development of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after 2020. The proposal for the new CAP is based on...

The future EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) requires coherence with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the international commitments in the fight against climate change. Next to ensuring stable food supply by supporting farmers and enhancing agricultural productivity, environmental...

German Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Africa is lagging behind China, France, the Netherlands, the UK, the US, and other economies. It represented only 1 percent of the German total FDI stock abroad in 2018 and is concentrated in few African countries. Overall, around 850 German firms have...

This paper proposes three theoretical mechanisms through which polygyny may be related to social unrest. The mechanisms are related to different dimensions of grievance-inducing and, partly, greed-related inequality, which may occur in polygynous societies. These dimensions include (i) economic,...

This study investigates the effects of energy consumption and capital investment on environmental degradation in selected African countries between 1981 and 2017 using panel cointegration approaches. The Fully Modified and the Dynamic Ordinary Least Squares results affirm that energy consumption...

This paper analyses financial inclusion in Africa focusing on the role of political business cycles and pricing behaviour of banks. We employ a sample of 330 banks operating in 29 African countries to test for two related hypotheses. Panel fixed and random effects were estimated for the period...

This paper investigated the weak axiom of the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) as it applies to fifteen (15) leading stock markets in Africa. There are currently over twenty-nine stock exchanges in Africa with a significant degree of disparities ranging from market size, trading volume, number...

This paper proposes three theoretical mechanisms through which polygyny may be related to social unrest. The mechanisms are related to different dimensions of grievance-inducing and, partly, greed-related inequality, which may occur in polygynous societies. These dimensions include (i) economic,...

Agriculture is highly important to the sustainable performance of economies in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), and a sound sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) system plays a key role in this respect. SPS measures are one of the many trade topics covered by TPR reports on WTO Members. Therefore, we found...

A range of explanations had been offered for the apparent change in oil price-inflation relationship outcomes ranging from the possible use of alternate energy sources, change in the structure of output regarding fewer oil intensive sectors and the role of fiscal and monetary in the affected...