This paper draws lessons from an original randomized experiment in Malawi. In order to understand why roads in relatively good condition in rural areas may not be used by buses, a minibus service was subsidized over a six-month period over a distance of 20 kilometers to serve five villages....

Starting with the hypothesis that behaviors are the critical (and often overlooked) factor in public sector performance, this paper explores the notion of how behavioral change (and thus institutional change) might be better motivated in the public sector. The basis for this study is "an...

This paper uses Zambia as a case study to assess empirically whether political interference in a low-governance environment has diminished in the past years as expected after a semi-autonomous agency model was set up ten years ago. The road sector in Zambia has experienced some significant...

West African Economic and Monetary Union arrangements have been instrumental in helping member countries maintain low inflation. However, a lesser-known characteristic of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, with possible implications for economic growth, is the high exposure to shocks...

When investments in education in developing countries do not produce higher growth, the problem may be the quality of the schooling, of the education infrastructure, of the initial endowment in human capital, and of the system's ability to equitably distribute educational services. The consensus...