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Radeny, M.

Livelihood Choices and Returns among Agro-Pastoralists in Southern Kenya
June 2006
Radeny, M., D. Nkedianye, P. Kristjanson, and M. Herrero
This article addresses livelihood choices and income diversification strategies among agro-pastoralists and pastoralists in southern Kenya, and the factors influencing the returns to the diverse livelihood strategies being pursued. We explore how variability in income and wealth levels across households can be explained by household-level versus geographic factors. We find that household livestock asset levels, education level, landholdings, and diversification of household income sources can largely explain how well households are doing. Geographic factors such as distance to the nearest town, permanent water source, and Nairobi National Park, as well as pasture potential also matter in some cases, but relatively little compared to household-level factors. Investments in livestock remain key to how well households are doing and in some cases appear to be driving livelihood diversification strategies that keep them from falling into poverty. While relatively few households are yet receiving wildlife conservation-related income, for those that are, it is a more lucrative option than cropping, from which very few are earning positive returns. This information can contribute to more evidence-based decision making occurring across pastoral areas and inform policy decisions regarding conservation of wildlife and poverty reduction strategies.
Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006.

Rahji, M. A. Y.

Primary School Enrollment and Gender Gap of Rural Households’ Children in South Western Nigeria
November 2005
Rahji, M. A. Y.
The study examined school enrollment and gender gap of rural household children at the primary level. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in data collection. Probit model was used in analyzing the data set. Evidence from the analysis indicated that more boys were enrolled than girls. The factors considered affect male and female children differently. Father’s education variable is significant for boys. It is not significant for girls. Mother's education variable though positive in both cases is not significant. The probit model predicted a gender gap of 12.56% in favour of boys. Most of the gap is due to differences in the ways households perceive male and female children. There is thus a preference for boys over girls in the demand for schooling. Based on the findings of this study, incentives for the enrollment of more girls were recommended. These include: differential fees, free tuition, and increased public subsidies for female education.
Paper prepared for the Regional Conference on “Education in West Africa: Constraints and Opportunities” in Dakar, Senegal, November 1-2, 2005.

Rajemison, Harivelo

The Progression through School and Academic Performance in Madagascar Study: Preliminary Descriptive Results
March 2005
Glick, Peter, Harivelo Rajemison, Arsène Ravelo, Yolande Raveloarison, Mamisoa Razakamanantsoa, and David E. Sahn
This paper is a preliminary analysis of the Etude sur la Progression Scolaire et la Performance Academique en Madagascar (EPSPAM). The study is based on a nation-wide household survey with a special focus on schooling, complimented by academic and life skills tests and additional surveys of local schools and communities. The survey was designed to investigate the household, community, and school-level determinants of a range of education outcomes in Madagascar: primary and secondary enrollment, grade repetition and dropout during primary and lower secondary school cycles, transitions from primary to secondary school, and learning — both academic (math and French test scores) and non-academic ('life-skills'). It also seeks to understand the association of early academic performance, on the one hand, and subsequent school progression and scholastic attainment, on the other. The study also investigates the knowledge and perceptions of parents about the schools in their communities. In addition, the policy environment in education in Madagascar has been very dynamic in the last several years. Therefore the study also evaluates the implementation and impacts of several important recent policies in education, including the elimination of public primary school fees and the provision of books and supplies, as well as a series of administrative reforms such as the professionalization of the chefs CISCO and efforts to make school finances more transparent.

Ranchhod, Vimal

Labour force withdrawal of the elderly in South Africa
February 2004
David Lam, Murray Leibbrandt and Vimal Ranchhod
The elderly in South Africa face a complex set of challenges. South Africans over age 50 spent most of their lives under apartheid. Levels of inequality in education between races and within races are far greater among these older cohorts than they are for younger South Africans. Elderly black South Africans lived their most productive years under the restrictions on employment, residency, and other opportunities that apartheid imposed. As they now enter retirement they face new pressures caused by the impact that HIV/AIDS and high unemployment rates are having on the next generation. At the same time, South Africa’s elderly have access to an old age pension system that is among the most generous in the developing world. The old age pension helps lift many older South Africans out of the most extreme forms of poverty, and puts many of them in a position supporting their children and grandchildren. Decisions of the elderly about work and retirement are made in this complex set of circumstances. Older workers face an increasingly competitive labor market characterized by high unemployment, with limited opportunities for those with poor education and training. They often live in large extended households in which their own resources may be an important source of economic support. The pension provides an important source of support, without necessarily competing with work. The state old age pension program has spawned a considerable body of research. This research is reviewed in the next section of the paper. The review shows that state old age pension is the key plank of South Africa’s social safety net, that these pensions are well targeted at the poor and, because of the large number of three-generation and skip-generation households in South Africa, this includes many poor children. In addition, it seems that many of the unemployed survive through their links to related pensioners. More recent research has begun to explore the impact of these pensions on labor participation behavior.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Randriamamonjy, Josée

Determinants of HIV Knowledge and Condom Use among Women in Madagascar: An Analysis Using Matched Household and Community Data
April 2009
Glick, Peter, Josée Randriamamonjy, and David E. Sahn
We estimate the determinants of HIV/AIDS knowledge and related behavior (use of condoms) among women in Madagascar, a country where prevalence remains low but conditions are ripe for a rapid increase in infections. In both rural and urban areas, more educated and wealthier women are more likely to know about means of preventing infection, less likely to have misconceptions about transmission, and more likely to use condoms. Community factors such as availability of health centers and access to roads also are associated with greater HIV knowledge. However, most of the large rural-urban difference in mean knowledge is due not to location per se but to differences in schooling and wealth; rather than simply being geographically targeted, AIDS education efforts must be designed to target and be understood by uneducated and poor subpopulations.
In African Development Review 21(1): 147-179, April, 2009

Randriamiarana, Zaza

Water Pricing, the New Water Law, and the Poor: An Estimation of Demand for Improved Water Services in Madagascar
December 2002
Minten, Bart, Rami Razafindralambo, Zaza Randriamiarana, and Bruce Larson

Generalized cost recovery is one of the basic principles of the new Water Law that has recently been adopted by the Malagasy government. However, the effect of this change in policy is still poorly understood. Based on contingent valuation surveys in an urban and a rural area in southern Madagascar, this study analyzes the effect of changes in prices for water services. The results suggest that a minimum size of 90 households in a village is necessary to reach full cost recovery for well construction. Given that this is significantly above the current size of villages in the survey area, full cost recovery seems therefore impossible and subsidies are necessary to increase access to improved water services. Cost recovery for maintenance is relatively easier to achieve. In urban areas, water use practices and willingness to pay for water services depend highly on household income. To better serve the poor, it is therefore suggested that rich households, who rely on private taps, cross-subsidize poor households as a significant number of households is unwilling or unable to pay for water from a public tap. Given that public taps make up a small part of the total consumption of the national water company JIRAMA, lower income from public taps are shown to have only a marginal effect on its total income. However, as experiences in other countries as well as in Madagascar have shown, a fee on public taps is necessary as water for free leads to spoilage, does not give any incentive for the distributor to expand networks, and might therefore be a bad policy for the poor overall.

Randrianarisoa, Jean Claude

Productivity in Malagasy Rice Systems: Wealth-differentiated Constraints and Priorities
December 2007
Minten, Bart, Jean Claude Randrianarisoa and Christopher B. Barrett
This study explores the constraints on agricultural productivity and priorities in boosting productivity in rice, the main staple in Madagascar, using a range of different data sets and analytical methods, integrating qualitative assessments by farmers and quantitative evidence from panel data production function analysis and willingness-to-pay estimates for chemical fertilizer. Nationwide, farmers seek primarily labor productivity enhancing interventions, e.g., improved access to agricultural equipment, cattle, and irrigation. Shock mitigation measures, land productivity increasing technologies, and improved land tenure are reported to be much less important. Research and interventions aimed at reducing costs and price volatility within the fertilizer supply chain might help at least the more accessible regions to more readily adopt chemical fertilizer
Invited panel paper prepared for presentation at the International Association of Agricultural Economists Conference, Gold Coast, Australia, August 12-18, 2006
In Agricultural Economics 37(s1): 237-248, December, 2007

Agricultural Policy Impact Analysis: A Seasonal Multi-Market Model for Madagascar
December 2006
Stifel, David C. and Jean-Claude Randrianarisoa
We describe the main features and results of a multi-market model for Madagascar that focuses on income generating activities in an agricultural sector that is characterized by seasonal variability. We find evidence that investments in rural infrastructure and commercial food storage have both direct and indirect benefits on poor households.
In Journal of Policy Modeling 28(9):1023-1027, 2006

Welfare Dynamics in Rural Kenya and Madagascar
February 2006
Barrett, Christopher B., Paswel Phiri Marenya, John McPeak, Bart Minten, Festus Murithi, Willis Oluoch-Kosura, Frank Place, Jean Claude Randrianarisoa, Jhon Rasambainarivo and Justine Wangila
This paper presents comparative qualitative and quantitative evidence from rural Kenya and Madagascar in an attempt to untangle the causality behind persistent poverty. We find striking differences in welfare dynamics depending on whether one uses total income, including stochastic terms and inevitable measurement error, or the predictable, structural component of income based on a household’s asset holdings. Our results suggest the existence of multiple dynamic asset and structural income equilibria, consistent with the poverty traps hypothesis. Furthermore, we find supporting evidence of locally increasing returns to assets and of risk management behaviour consistent with poor households' defence of a critical asset threshold through asset smoothing.
In Journal of Development Studies 42(2): 248-277, 2006
In Understanding and Reducing Persistent Poverty in Africa, Christopher Barrett, Peter Little, Michael Carter (eds.), Routledge, 2007.

Getting the Inputs Right for Improved Agricultural Productivity in Madagascar, Which Inputs Matter and Are the Poor Different?
June 2005
Randrianarisoa, Claude and Bart Minten
We found that while farmers are willing to pay for improved irrigation infrastructure through water use associations, the amounts they are willing to contribute are significantly below the costs – and significantly below international standards – and this especially so for the poorest farmers. For chemical fertilizer, a more rational structuring of the fertilizer supply chain, with clear and consistent market signals, might help at least the more accessible regions to more readily adopt this input.
Paper presented during the workshop “Agricultural and Poverty in Eastern Africa,” June, 2005, World Bank, Washington D.C.

Randrianarison, Lalaina

Supermarkets, International Trade and Farmers in Developing Countries: Evidence from Madagascar
September 2005
Minten, Bart, Lalaina Randrianarison, and Johan F. M. Swinnen
Global retail companies (“supermarkets”) have an increasing influence on developing countries, through foreign investments and/or through the imposition of their private standards. The impact on developing countries and poverty is often assessed as negative. In this paper we show the opposite, based on an analysis of primary data collected to measure the impact of supermarkets on small contract farmers in Madagascar, one of the poorest countries in the world. Almost 10,000 farmers in the Highlands of Madagascar produce vegetables for supermarkets in Europe. In this global supply chain, small farmers’ micro-contracts are combined with extensive farm assistance and supervision programs to fulfill complex quality requirements and phyto-sanitary standards of supermarkets. Small farmers that participate in these contracts have higher welfare, more income stability and shorter lean periods. We also find significant effects on improved technology adoption, better resource management and spillovers on the productivity of the staple crop rice. The small but emerging modern retail sector in Madagascar does not (yet) deliver these benefits as they do not (yet) request the same high standards for their supplies.

Rankin, Neil

Exporting from manufacturing firms in Sub-Saharan Africa: Micro evidence for macro outcomes
October 2004
Neil Rankin, Måns Söderbom and Francis Teal
The poor performance of many African economies has been associated with low growth of exports in general and of manufacturing exports in particular. In this paper we draw on micro evidence of manufacturing firms in five African countries - Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, South Africa and Nigeria - to investigate the causes of poor exporting performance. Micro empirical work on manufacturing firms has focused on the relationship between export participation and efficiency. The evidence for SSA shows that exporters te nd to be larger, more capital intensive and produce more output per unit of labour than non exporters. We show that firm size is a robust determinant of the decision to export. It is not a proxy for efficiency, for capital intensity, for sector, for time -invariant unobservables or for the fixed cost of entry into exporting. The implication of these findings is that large firms are necessary for exporting. However larger firms are more capital intensive. Small firms may create jobs, they will not be able to export. We also find that efficiency only impacts on the decision to export regionally, defined as within Africa, not internationally. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa
In Journal of African Economies 15(4):671-687, 2006

Rasambainarivo, Jhon

Rashid, Shahidur

Understanding the Differential Impact of Institutions and Institutional Interventions on Smallholder Behavior and Livelihoods in Rural Ethiopia
May 2007
Liverpool, Saweda Onipede, Alex Winter-Nelson and Shahidur Rashid
This paper focuses on making the case that: 1) there is differential impact of modern technology adoption on livelihoods for rural households of different asset poverty typologies; 2) this difference can be explained in part, by the differential impact of services provided by various institutions on participation in these modern agriculture practices amongst rural households in different poverty classes; 3) there is a need to assess more closely the nature of constraints faced by different classes of poor agricultural households and the packages offered by different institutional interventions geared towards encouraging farmer participation in various agricultural practices expected to increase their productivity and improve livelihood; and 4) this analysis shows that recognizing target group differences (e.g. using asset poverty typologies) are an important consideration in program development as well as program evaluation.
Prepared for the AERC-Cornell Conference on “Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” May 31-June 1, 2007, Nairobi, Kenya

Rau, Neren

Financial Intermediation and Access to Finance in African Countries South of the Sahara
October 2004
Neren Rau
This paper describes the status of financial systems for a number of African countries south of the Sahara, identifying various problems that hinder access to finance, especially for the poor, and subsequently those issues that deter economic performance and development. The countries surveyed were selected on the basis of a range of criteria including: geographical spread, economic size and development, level of financial market development and availability of information. Although Angola, Botswana, Gabon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa are the focus countries of this survey, many of the scenarios presented in this paper are applicable to other African countries south of the Sahara. Broad policy measures to tackle the bottlenecks that currently undermine financial systems' responsiveness to the needs of the real economic sector are recommended.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Ravelo, Arsène

Raveloarison, Yolande

Razafindralambo, Rami

Razakamanantsoa, Mamisoa

The Distribution of Social Services in Madagascar, 1993-99
December 2002
Glick, Peter and Mamisoa Razakamanantsoa
While a number of benefit incidence studies of public expenditures have been carried out for African countries, there are very few studies that look at how the incidence of such expenditures has been changing over time. We use three rounds of nation-wide household surveys to analyze the distribution of public expenditures on education and health services in Madagascar over the decade of the 90s, a period of little economic growth but significant changes in social sector organization and budgets. Education and health services for the most part are found to be distributed more equally than household expenditures: therefore they serve to redistribute welfare from the rich to the poor. By stricter standards of progressivity, however, public services do poorly. Few services other than primary schooling accrue disproportionately to the poor in absolute terms. When we further adjust for differences in the numbers of potential beneficiaries in different expenditure quintiles (e.g., school-age children in the case of education), none of the education or health benefits considered appear to target the poor while several target the non-poor. We also find significant disparities in the use of services between rural and urban areas, and by province. On the other hand, for both education and health services, no notable gender differences exist in coverage. With regard to changes over the decade, primary enrollments rose sharply and also become significantly more progressive; since the country experienced little or no growth in household incomes during the period, this apparently reflects supply rather than demand side factors. The improvement in equity in public schooling occurred in part because the enrollment growth was in effect regionally targeted: it occurred only in rural areas, which are poorer.
Also see, "The Distribution of Education and Health Services in Madagascar over the 1990s: Increasing Progressivity in an Era of Low Growth," in Journal of African Economies (October, 2005).

Richard, Okene

Access to Schooling and Employment in Cameroon: New Inequalities and Opportunities
April 2004
Eloundou-Enyegue, Parfait M., Ngoube Maurice, Okene Richard, V.P Onguene,Serge Bahoken, Joseph Tamukong, Moses Mbangwana, Joseph Essindi Evina, and Caroline Mongue Djongoue
This report is about recent trends in education and access to employment in Cameroon. It focuses on five questions about (1) current levels of schooling, (2) recent trends in enrolment, (3) recent trends in schooling inequalities, (4) access to employment, and (5) risks and opportunities to improve education and employment outcomes. Based on these analyses, the report discusses several challenges and opportunities in improving education and employment outcomes.

Roberts, Simon

Industrial Strategy and local economic development: manufacturing policy and technological capabilities in Ekurhulen
October 2004
Thandi Phele, Simon Roberts and Ian Steuart
Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality is one of six metropolitan municipalities created in major urban concentrations. More importantly, it covers the largest industrial concentration in South Africa and in sub-Saharan Africa. The economy of Ekurhuleni reflects the apartheid legacy of minerals-oriented industrialisation, and the growth of an urban labour pool to supply the mines. Ekurhuleni grew on the back of the main concentration of gold mining in the country. This is reflected in the structure of manufacturing. Ekurhuleni accounted for 37 per cent of South African output of machinery and 33 per cent of metal products in 1996, with major markets for each historically being mining.2 The performance of the Ekurhuleni economy has, however, been very poor in recent years and, with the decline in gold mining, unemployment increased sharply to reach 40 per cent in 2002.3 Manufacturing in Ekurhuleni recorded an average annual growth of va lue-added of just 0.4 per cent between 1997 and 2002 (much lower than the national manufacturing annual growth of 2.3 per cent). Regeneration of the industrial base is thus crucial to addressing unemployment and poverty in the region. This paper examines the impact of national developments and policies on the development of industry in Ekurhuleni. It assesses role of local government in industrial development in light of recent literature addressing agglomeration effects, industrial districts, and the deve lopment of local economic competencies and institutions. The analysis draws on recent work on the manufacturing sector in Ekurhuleni and a case study of the foundry industry in particular, focusing on its performance and recent development in terms of firm capabilities, orientation, and the institutional framework.
Presented at the DPRU-TIPS-Cornell University Forum on "African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage," October 13-15, 2004, Cape Town, South Africa

Robinson, Jonathan

Sex Work as a Response to Risk in Western Kenya
March 2007
Robinson, Jonathan and Ethan Yeh
Formal and informal commercial sex work is a way of life for many poor women in developing countries. Though sex workers have long been identified as crucial in affecting the spread of HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, the nature of sex-for-money transactions remains poorly understood. This paper investigates sex worker behavior using daily self-reported data on sexual behavior, income shocks, expenditures, and labor supply for a sample of 237 women in Western Kenya. We find significant day-to-day fluctuations in sex worker decisions, and that women engage in sex-for-money transactions in part to deal with unexpected non-labor income shocks. Riskier sex is better compensated in Western Kenya, and we find that women increase their supply of riskier, better compensated sex on days in which a household member falls ill. In particular, women are 23.6% more likely to have unprotected sex, 16.8% more likely to have anal sex, and increase the number of unprotected sexual acts by 21.7% on such days. These increases in risky sexual behavior have important health consequences for these women and on the spread of HIV/AIDS. While not denying the need for interventions that encourage women to leave the commercial sex industry, our research suggests that important opportunities exist to reduce the health risks of sex work within sex work beyond HIV education and condom distribution.
Prepared for the AERC-Cornell Conference on “Bottom-Up Interventions and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” May 31-June 1, 2007, Nairobi, Kenya

Rospabe, Sandrine

Does City Structure Cause Unemployment? The Case Study of Cape Town
October 2005
Rospabe, Sandrine and Harris Selod
Several theoretical and empirical findings suggest that the spatial organization of cities can be a source of unemployment among unskilled workers and ethnic minorities, stressing either the role of residential segregation or that of the physical disconnection between work and residence. The present paper investigates this issue in South Africa by focusing on the example of Cape Town, a sprawling and highly segregated city. Using the dataset of the 1998 study on the Migration and Settlement in the Cape Metropolitan Area complemented by local population statistics extracted from the 1996 Census and local employment statistics extracted from the City of Cape Town’s 2000 RSC Levy database, we regress the unemployment probability of a selection of workers in 24 different areas of the city on their individual and household attributes as well as on the characteristics of their locations. Results obtained so far suggest that (i) distance to jobs, (ii) rural origin (especially for women) and (iii) the length of time spent in their present dwelling reduce the employment probability of workers.
In Poverty and Policy in Post Apartheid South Africa, edited by Haroon Bhorat and Ravi Kanbur. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press, 2006.

Eric A. Roth

Is Settling Good for Pastoralists? The Effects of Pastoral Sedentarization on Children’s Nutrition, Growth, and Health Among Rendille and Ariaal of Marsabit District, Northern Kenya
June 2006
Fratkin, Elliot, Martha A. Nathan, and Eric A. Roth
The settling of formerly mobile pastoral populations is occurring rapidly throughout East Africa. Pastoral sedentarization has been encouraged by international development agencies and national governments to alleviate problems of food insecurity, health care delivery, and national integration. However, it has not been demonstrated that abandoning the pastoral way of life, and particularly access to livestock products, has been beneficial to the health and well-being of pastoral populations. This paper reports the results of a three-year study of pastoral and settled Rendille and Ariaal (mixed Samburu/Rendille) communities in Marsabit District northern Kenya, which compares levels of child malnutrition and illness between five different Rendille communities, ranging from purely pastoral to agricultural and urban communities. Analysis of bimonthly dietary recalls, anthropometric measurements, morbidity data, and economic differentiation and specialization among 202 mothers and their 488 children under age 9 reveals large differences in the growth patterns and morbidity of nomadic vs. settled children. In particular, age-specific height and weight measurements for the nomadic pastoral community are significantly higher than same-aged measurements of children from the sedentary villages. Furthermore, women and especially pregnant women showed higher levels of malnutrition in the settled communities. Both women and children showed higher rates of respiratory and diarrheal morbidity in settled versus nomadic communities, although malaria rates were uniformly higher in lowland communities than in the highlands. Differences in child growth are attributed mainly to better nutrition, and particularly access to camel’s milk within the nomadic communities. The striking decrease in diarrheal and respiratory diseases for the nomadic children vs. settled children coupled with the findings of a relative decrease in malnutrition and stunting indicate an unexpected edge for health and growth of nomadic Rendille children. The policy implications of our findings are significant. Although pastoralism is not an option for everyone living in dry regions like northern Kenya, the decrease in diarrheal and respiratory illness and for pastoralist children, and the higher levels of stunting in settled children from pastoral populations, should be part of decisions affecting social, economic, and health policy for pastoral regions.
Presented at the Policy Research Conference on “Pastoralism and Poverty Reduction in East Africa,” held in Nairobi, Kenya, June 27-28, 2006.

Roubaud, François

Export Processing Zone Expansion in Madagascar: What are the Labor Market and Gender Impacts?
December 2006
Glick, Peter and François Roubaud
This paper analyzes part of the controversy over export processing zones—the labor market and gender impacts—using unique time-series labor force survey data from an African setting: urban Madagascar, in which the EPZ (or Zone Franche) grew very rapidly during the 1990s. Employment in the Zone Franche exhibits some basic patterns seen elsewhere in export processing industries of the developing world, such as the predominance of young, semi-skilled female workers. Taking advantage of microdata availability, we estimate earnings regressions to assess sector and gender wage premia. Zone Franche employment is found to represent a significant step up in pay for women who would otherwise be found in poorly remunerated informal sector work. Because it provides relatively high wage opportunities for those with relatively low levels of schooling, export processing development may also eventually have significant impacts on poverty. Further, by disproportionately drawing women from the low-wage sector informal sector (where the gender pay gap is very large) to the relatively well-paid export processing jobs (where pay is not only higher but also similar for men and women with similar qualifications), the EPZ has the potential to contribute to improved overall gender equity in earnings in the urban economy. Along many non-wage dimensions, jobs in the export processing zone are comparable to or even superior to other parts of the formal sector. However, the sector is also marked by very long working hours and high turnover, which may work to prevent it from being a source of long-term employment and economic advancement for women.
Paper prepared for the conference “African Development and Poverty Reduction: The Macro-Micro Linkage” Cape Town, South Africa October 2004
In Journal of African Economies 15(4): 722-756, 2006

La dimension économique de l’efficacité externe de l’éducation en Afrique de l’Ouest
November 2005
Duret, Elsa, Mathias Kuepie, Christophe Nordman, and François Roubaud
Les analyses ciblant l’efficacité externe1 des systèmes éducatifs s’intéressent à l’influence de l’éducation reçue par les individus après qu’ils sont sortis des écoles et établissements de formation pour mener à bien leur vie d’adulte au sein de la société. Ces effets sont de deux ordres, économiques dans un sens étroit, sociaux dans une conception plus large, et peuvent être lus à travers deux dimensions complémentaires : individuelle d’une part, collective d’autre part. Le croisement de ces deux perspectives offre un tableau synthétique des différentes analyses qui peuvent être conduites dans ce domaine...
Paper prepared for the Regional Conference on “Education in West Africa: Constraints and Opportunities” in Dakar, Senegal, November 1-2, 2005

Round, Jeffery I.

Poverty Reduction Strategies in a Budget-Constrained Economy: The Case of Ghana
February 2003
Maurizio Bussolo and Jeffery I. Round
Analyses of responses to reforms in Ghana seem to indicate that current policies may be benefiting different segments of society disproportionately. Also, experience in the 1990s suggests that recurring budget deficits may adversely affect reform and poverty alleviation programmes. The aim of this paper is to carry out some experiments using variants of a stylised CGE model, to ascertain the possible effects on poverty of a range of budget-neutral redistributive income transfers. The analysis is based on a social accounting matrix (SAM) for Ghana for the year 1993, which has been substantially modified for the present application. The CGE model is a real-side, static model and therefore excludes the monetary and financial sectors and is designed in the tradition of other OECD Development Centre models. The experimental design follows one employed by Adelman and Robinson (1978) for Korea and Chia, Wahba and Whalley (1992) for the Côte d’Ivoire. However the experiments are designed with a view to examining the sensitivity of the results to alternative specifications, within otherwise broadly similar, SAM-based model structures. The main outcome is to show that the results are very sensitive to (long and short run) closure rules, to the financing rules in a budget-neutral setting, and to the method of computing poverty ratios (parametric and non-parametric approaches). A new decomposition method is introduced to assist in interpreting the results. A wide range of simulations demonstrates that poverty is not eradicated via redistributive income transfers, and may even increase, especially in the short run, after taking into account the secondary effects.
Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana

Rourke, Blair

Coping with Performance Below Expectations
July 2004
Blair Rourke
The weak economic performance of Ghana since independence has been a source of much disappointment. A similar situation applies as well to most other African countries, and for many, the performance has been even worse. Much attention has been given both to failed government policies and to the failure of international assistance. It will be argued that one factor that is frequently not given sufficient attention in the discussion of the growth in the economy of Ghana is the extent to which the 1950s, the period during which Ghana obtained its independence, was an abnormally favorable period for Ghana and for most other primary commodity producing countries. The focus of the argument here is somewhat different from that usually advanced in studies showing the critical importance of the terms of trade to Ghana. It is that the favorable external environment for Ghana in the 1950s was the result of rather unique events, and the degree to which they were unique was not fully appreciated at the time and for many years thereafter. This experience of Ghana in the early postindependence period raises more general questions as to how to differentiate between permanent and transitory events, and further, when major errors occur, questions as to how the situation can be rectified.
Presented at the ISSER-University of Ghana-Cornell University International Conference on "Ghana at the Half Century," July 18-20, 2004, Accra, Ghana

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