Using educational and occupational statistics derived from 30,000 marriage registers obtained from six major cities in British colonial Africa, we show how early colonial mission education helped African men access formal labour. Women were relegated to informal and homemaking activities...

Institutional reforms in developing countries often involve copying institutions from developed countries. Such institutional copying is likely to fail, if formal institutions alone are copied without the informal institutions on which they rest in the originating country. This paper...

Despite positive but mixed progress over two decades, most lower income African countries need to enhance their low tax-to-GDP ratios by mobilizing domestic resources to complement debt relief, donor aid and to achieve the MDG and poverty reduction objectives. With these goals in mind, most...

Modern tax administrations seek to optimize tax collections while minimizing administration costs and taxpayer compliance costs. Experience shows that voluntary compliance is best achieved through a system of self-assessment. Many tax administrations have introduced self-assessment principles in...

Modern tax administrations seek to optimize tax collections while minimizing administration costs and taxpayer compliance costs. Experience shows that voluntary compliance is best achieved through a system of self-assessment. Many tax administrations have introduced self-assessment principles in...

Within the development field, tax administration reform is an area of relative success. Over the past two decades, the national revenue systems of most countries in anglophone Africa have undergone major reforms. These comprise, in particular, the introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT), the...

This paper examines opportunities and constraints facing local revenue mobilisation in anglophone Africa, with an emphasis on urban settings. It discusses specific revenue instruments and their effects on economic efficiency, income distribution and accountability. In particular, it addresses...

Based on case studies of education systems and practices in eight English-speaking African countries, the publication closely examines issues of teacher supply, deployment, management and finance. The book suggests that these issues are closely interrelated. Low numbers of qualified teaching...

Recent studies on African economic history have emphasized the structural impediments to African growth, such as adverse geographical conditions and extractive colonial institutions. The evidence is mainly drawn from cross-country regressions on late 20th century income levels, assuming...

All the countries in Anglophone Africa share a common history of British colonialism. Many of the administrative practices and laws are similar. There must have been a model set of legal clauses for property tax produced in Whitehall for the colonial administration to use and adapt to local...

Anglophone African countries have been implementing reform and modernization initiatives in their Customs administrations. This paper outlines the progression of key reform and modernization initiatives in these countries since the early 1990s, and assesses the gap between these reforms and...

Anglophone African countries have been implementing reform and modernization initiatives in their Customs administrations. This paper outlines the progression of key reform and modernization initiatives in these countries since the early 1990s, and assesses the gap between these reforms and...

Despite positive but mixed progress over two decades, most lower income African countries need to enhance their low tax-to-GDP ratios by mobilizing domestic resources to complement debt relief, donor aid and to achieve the MDG and poverty reduction objectives. With these goals in mind, most...

Entrepreneurs are cultural creatures and culture affects how they conceive their opportunities and how they determine and pursue their interests. Understanding entrepreneurship in any particular context thus requires attention to be paid to prevailing cultural beliefs as well as the formal and...

This paper examines interest rate spreads in English-speaking African countries. Higher spreads were found to be associated with lower inflation, a greater number of banks, and greater public ownership of banks. Higher deposit interest rates were found to be associated with lower interest rate...

This paper examines the merits of the British budget management system that was inherited in Anglophone African countries and which has changed substantially in the United Kingdom since the 1960s. It considers whether the disappointing budgetary performance in Africa is due to weaknesses in the...