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2. Stunted Growth: Why Don't African Firms Create More Jobs?
- Author:
- Vijaya Ramachandran, Leonardo Iacovone, and Martin Schmidt
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Many countries in Africa suffer high rates of underemployment or low rates of productive employment; many also anticipate large numbers of people to enter the workforce in the near future. This paper asks the question: Are African firms creating fewer jobs than those located elsewhere? And, if so, why? One reason may be that weak business environments slow the growth of firms and distort the allocation of resources away from better-performing firms, hence reducing their potential for job creation.
- Topic:
- Economics, Industrial Policy, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Fragile/Failed State
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Israel
3. Development as Diffusion: Manufacturing Productivity and Sub-Saharan Africa's Missing Middle
- Author:
- Vijaya Ramachandran, Alan Gelb, and Christian J. Meyer
- Publication Date:
- 02-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- We consider economic development of Sub-Saharan Africa from the perspective of slow convergence of productivity, both across sectors and across firms within sectors. Why have "productivity enclaves", islands of high productivity in a sea of smaller low-productivity firms, not diffused more rapidly? We summarize and analyze three sets of factors: First, the poor business climate, which constrains the allocation of production factors between sectors and firms. Second, the complex political economy of business-government relations in Africa's small economies. Third, the distribution of firm capabilities. The roots of these factors lie in Africa's geography and its distinctive history, including the legacy of its colonial period on state formation and market structure.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Industrial Policy, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- Africa
4. Self-Selection into Credit Markets: Evidence from Agriculture in Mali
- Author:
- Dean Karlan, Bram Thuysbaert, Christopher Udry, and Lori Beaman
- Publication Date:
- 09-2014
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- We partnered with a micro-lender in Mali to randomize credit offers at the village level. Then, in no-loan control villages, we gave cash grants to randomly selected households. These grants led to higher agricultural investments and profits, thus showing that liquidity constraints bind with respect to agricultural investment. In loan-villages, we gave grants to a random subset of farmers who (endogenously) did not borrow. These farmers have lower – in fact zero – marginal returns to the grants. Thus we find important heterogeneity in returns to investment and strong evidence that farmers with higher marginal returns to investment self-select into lending programs.
- Topic:
- Agriculture and Economics
- Political Geography:
- Africa
5. Planning for Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power in South Africa: Identifying Cost-Effective Deployment Strategies Using Spatiotemporal Modeling
- Author:
- Kevin Ummel
- Publication Date:
- 09-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- South Africa and many other countries hope to aggressively expand wind and solar power (WSP) in coming decades. The challenge is to turn laudable aspirations into concrete plans that minimize costs, maximize benefits, and ensure reliability. Success hinges largely on the question of how and where to deploy intermittent WSP technologies. This study develops a 10-year database of expected hourly power generation for onshore wind, solar photovoltaic, and concentrating solar power technologies across South Africa. A simple power system model simulates the economic and environmental performance of different WSP spatial deployment strategies in 2040, while ensuring a minimum level of system reliability.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Economics, Energy Policy, Environment, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa and South Africa
6. The New Transparency in Development Economics: Lessons from the Millennium Villages Controversy
- Author:
- Michael Clemens and Gabriel Demombynes
- Publication Date:
- 09-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The Millennium Villages Project is a high profile, multi-country development project that has aimed to serve as a model for ending rural poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. The project became the subject of controversy when the methodological basis of early claims of success was questioned. The lively ensuing debate offers lessons on three recent mini-revolutions that have swept the field of development economics: the rising standards of evidence for measuring impact, the “open data” movement, and the growing role of the blogosphere in research debates.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Poverty, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- Africa
7. Making Large-Scale Wind and Solar Power a Reality
- Author:
- Kevin Ummel
- Publication Date:
- 10-2013
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- South Africa and many other countries hope to aggressively expand wind and solar power (WSP) in the coming decades. This presents significant challenges for power system planning. Success hinges largely on the question of how and where to deploy WSP technologies. Well-designed deployment strategies can take advantage of natural variability in resources across space and time to help minimize costs, maximize benefits, and ensure reliability.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Economics, Energy Policy, and Science and Technology
- Political Geography:
- Africa
8. Is Anyone Listening? Does US Foreign Assistance Target People's Top Priorities?
- Author:
- Benjamin Leo
- Publication Date:
- 12-2013
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The United States government has made repeated declarations over the last decade to align its assistance programs behind developing countries' priorities. By utilizing public attitude surveys for 42 African and Latin American countries, this paper examines how well the US has implemented this guiding principle. Building upon the Quality of Official Development Assistance Assessment (QuODA) approach, I identify what people cite most frequently as the 'most pressing problems' facing their nations and then measure the percentage of US assistance commitments that are directed towards addressing them. By focusing on public surveys over time, this analysis attempts to provide a more nuanced and targeted examination of whether US portfolios are addressing what people care the most about. As reference points, I compare US alignment trends with the two regional multilateral development banks (MDBs) – the African Development Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Overall, this analysis suggests that US assistance may be only modestly aligned with what people in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America cite as their nation's most pressing problems. By comparison, the African Development Bank – which is majority-led by regional member nations – performs significantly better than the United States. Like the United States, however, the Inter-American Development Bank demonstrates a low relative level of support for people's top concerns.
- Topic:
- Security, Crime, Development, Economics, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, America, and Latin America
9. What's Wrong with Dodd-Frank 1502? Conflict Minerals, Civilian Livelihoods, and the Unintended Consequences of Western Advocacy
- Author:
- Laura E. Seay
- Publication Date:
- 01-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Although its provisions have yet to be implemented, section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is already having a profound effect on the Congolese mining sector. Nicknamed “Obama's Law” by the Congolese, section 1502 has created a de facto ban on Congolese mineral exports, put anywhere from tens of thousands up to 2 million Congolese miners out of work in the eastern Congo, and, despite ending most of the trade in Congolese conflict minerals, done little to improve the security situation or the daily lives of most Congolese. In this report, Laura Seay traces the development of section 1502 with respect to the pursuit of a conflict minerals-based strategy by U.S. advocates, examines the effects of the legislation, and recommends new courses of action to move forward in a way that both promotes accountability and transparency and allows Congolese artisanal miners to earn a living.
- Topic:
- Security, Development, Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, Poverty, Natural Resources, and Financial Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, and Democratic Republic of the Congo
10. Hoping to Win, Expected to Lose: Theory and Lessons on Microenterprise Development
- Author:
- Dean Karlan, Ryan Knight, and Christopher Udry
- Publication Date:
- 11-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- We show how financial and managerial constraints impede experimentation and thus limit learning about the profitability of investments. Imperfect information about one's own type, but willingness to experiment to learn one's type, leads to short-run negative expected returns to investments, with some outliers succeeding. We find in an experiment that entrepreneurs invest randomized grants of cash and adopt advice from randomized grants of consulting services, but both lead to lower profits on average. In the long run, they revert back to their prior scale of operations. In a meta-analysis, results from 19 other experiments find mixed support for this theory.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Markets, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- Africa
11. Energizing Rio+20: How the United States Can Promote Sustainable Energy for All at the 2012 Earth Summit
- Author:
- Nigel Purvis and Abigail Jones
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Worldwide, about 1.3 billion people lack access to electricity (one in five people), while unreliable electricity networks serve another 1 billion people. Roughly 2.7 billion—about 40 percent of the global population—lack access to clean cooking fuels. Instead, dirty, sometimes scarce and expensive fuels such as kerosene, candles, wood, animal waste, and crop residues power the lives of the energy poor, who pay disproportionately high costs and receive very poor quality in return. More than 95 percent of the energy poor are either in sub-Saharan Africa or developing Asia, while 84 percent are in rural areas—the same regions that are the most vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
- Topic:
- Climate Change, Development, Economics, Energy Policy, Environment, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Africa, United States, and Asia
12. No Longer Poor: Ghana's New Income Status and Implications of Graduation from IDA
- Author:
- Todd Moss and Stephanie Majerowicz
- Publication Date:
- 07-2012
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- Ghana's largest and most important creditor for the past three decades has been the International Development Association (IDA), the soft loan window of the World Bank. That will soon come to an end. The combination of Ghana's rapid economic growth and the recent GDP rebasing exercise means that Ghana suddenly finds itself above the income limit for IDA eligibility. Formal graduation is imminent and comes with significant implications for access to concessional finance, debt, and relations with other creditors. This paper considers the specific questions related to Ghana's relationship with the World Bank, as well as the broader questions about the country's new middle-income status.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Poverty, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- Africa
13. How Can the World Bank Group Improve Its Private Sector Projects in African Fragile States?
- Author:
- Vijaya Ramachandran, Benjamin Leo, and Ross Thuotte
- Publication Date:
- 04-2012
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- In recent years, the World Bank Group has made increasingly strong and explicit commitments to fragile and conflict-affected states, putting them at the top of the development policy agenda. These commitments are promising, but give rise to significant operational challenges for the various arms of the World Bank Group, including the International Development Association (IDA), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). The bank also faces steady pressure from shareholders to scale up involvement in fragile states while also improving absorptive capacity and project effectiveness.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Markets, Foreign Aid, and World Bank
- Political Geography:
- Africa
14. Regional Development Banks (ABCs of the IFIs Brief)
- Author:
- Jenny Ottenhoff
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The regional development banks (RDBs) are multilateral financial institutions that provide financial and technical assistance for development in low- and middle-income countries within their regions. Finance is allocated through low-interest loans and grants for a range of development sectors such as health and education, infrastructure, public administration, financial and private-sector development, agriculture, and environmental and natural resource management. The term RDB usually refers to four institutions:
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Foreign Aid, and Foreign Direct Investment
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Europe, and Asia
15. Leadership Selection at the International Financial Institutions
- Author:
- Jenny Ottenhoff
- Publication Date:
- 09-2011
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- The International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are multilateral agencies. The term typically refers to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which provides financing and policy advice to member nations experiencing economic difficulties, and the multilateral development banks (MDBs), which provide financing and technical support for development projects and economic reform in low- and middle-income countries. The term MDB is usually understood to mean the World Bank and four smaller regional development banks: African Development Bank (AfDB). Asian Development Bank (ADB). European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, International Monetary Fund, Foreign Aid, and World Bank
- Political Geography:
- Africa, America, Europe, and Asia
16. Direct Redistribution, Taxation, and Accountability in Oil-Rich Economies: A Proposal
- Author:
- Shantayanan Devarajan, Hélène Ehrhart, Tuan Minh Le, and Gaël Raballand
- Publication Date:
- 12-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- To enhance efficiency of public spending in oil-rich economies, this paper proposes that some of the oil revenues be transferred directly to citizens, and then taxed to finance public expenditures. The argument is that spending that is financed by taxation—rather than by resource revenues accruing directly to the government—is more likely to be scrutinized by citizens and hence subject to greater efficiency. We develop the case as follows: First, we confirm that public expenditure efficiency is lower in oil-rich countries compared with other developing countries. Second, we develop a theoretical model to explain why citizens' scrutiny over public expenditure can be increased by transferring oil revenues to citizens and then taxing them. By receiving transfers and then paying taxes, citizens are better informed about the level of government revenue, and they have an incentive to ensure that their taxes are spent on public goods. Third, we show empirically that enhanced citizens' scrutiny is associated with more efficient government spending decisions and that accountability is stronger in countries that rely more on taxation to finance public spending. We conclude that, while it may be difficult to implement such a proposal in existing oil producers, there is scope for introducing it in some of Africa's new oil producers.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, and Oil
- Political Geography:
- Africa
17. Are Borders Barriers? The Impact of International and Internal Ethnic Borders on Agricultural Markets in West Africa
- Author:
- Jenny C. Aker, Michael W. Klein, Stephen A. O'Connell, and Muzhe Yang
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- This paper addresses two important economic issues for Africa: the contribution of national borders and ethnicity to market segmentation and integration between and within countries. Market pair regression analysis provides evidence of higher conditional price dispersion for both a grain and a cash crop between markets separated by the Niger-Nigeria border than between two markets located in the same country. A regression discontinuity analysis also confirms a significant price change at the international border. The international border effect is lower, however, if the cross-border markets share a common ethnicity. Ethnicity is also linked to higher price dispersion within Niger; we find a significant intranational border effect between markets in different ethnic regions of the country. This suggests that ethnic similarities diminishing international border effects could enhance international market integration, and ethnic differences could contribute to intranational market segmentation in sub-Saharan Africa. We provide suggestive evidence that the primary mechanism behind the internal border effect is related to the role of ethnicity in facilitating access to credit in agricultural markets. We argue that the results are not driven by differences in price volatility or observables across borders.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Economics, Ethnic Conflict, and Markets
- Political Geography:
- Africa, West Africa, and Nigeria
18. Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa
- Author:
- Jenny C. Aker and Isaac M. Mbiti
- Publication Date:
- 06-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- We examine the growth of mobile phone technology over the past decade and consider its potential impacts upon quality of life in low-income countries, with a particular focus on sub-Saharan Africa. We first provide an overview of the patterns and determinants of mobile phone coverage in sub-Saharan Africa before describing the characteristics of primary and secondary mobile phone adopters on the continent. We then discuss the channels through which mobile phone technology can impact development outcomes, both as a positive externality of the communication sector and as part of mobile phone-based development projects, and analyze existing evidence. While current research suggests that mobile phone coverage and adoption have had positive impacts on agricultural and labor market efficiency and welfare in certain countries, empirical evidence is still somewhat limited. In addition, mobile phone technology cannot serve as the “silver bullet” for development in sub-Saharan Africa. Careful impact evaluations of mobile phone development projects are required to better understand their impacts upon economic and social outcomes, and mobile phone technology must work in partnership with other public good provision and investment.
- Topic:
- Economics
- Political Geography:
- Africa
19. When Does Rigorous Impact Evaluation Make a Difference? The Case of the Millennium Villages
- Author:
- Michael Clemens and Gabriel Demombynes
- Publication Date:
- 10-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- When is the rigorous impact evaluation of development projects a luxury, and when a necessity? We study one high-profile case: the Millennium Villages Project (MVP), an experimental and intensive package intervention to spark sustained local economic development in rural Africa. We illustrate the benefits of rigorous impact evaluation in this setting by showing that estimates of the project's effects depend heavily on the evaluation method. Comparing trends at the MVP intervention sites in Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria to trends in the surrounding areas yields much more modest estimates of the project's effects than the before-versus-after comparisons published thus far by the MVP. Neither approach constitutes a rigorous impact evaluation of the MVP, which is impossible to perform due to weaknesses in the evaluation design of the project's initial phase. These weaknesses include the subjective choice of intervention sites, the subjective choice of comparison sites, the lack of baseline data on comparison sites, the small sample size, and the short time horizon. We describe how the next wave of the intervention could be designed to allow proper evaluation of the MVP's impact at little additional cost.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and Foreign Aid
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Nigeria
20. Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries Are Leading the Way
- Author:
- Steven Radelet
- Publication Date:
- 09-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Center for Global Development
- Abstract:
- There's good news out of Africa. Seventeen emerging countries are putting behind them the conflict, stagnation, and dictatorships of the past. Since the mid-1990s, these countries have defied the old negative stereotypes of poverty and failure by achieving steady economic growth, deepening democracy, improving governance, and decreasing poverty.
- Topic:
- Debt, Democratization, Development, Economics, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Africa