The lowest level of government in sub-Saharan Africa is often a cadre of chiefs who raise taxes, control the judicial system and allocate the most important scarce resource - land. Chiefs, empowered by colonial indirect rule, are often accused of using their power despotically and inhibiting...

This study examines the efficiency of the financial sector in African countries. It aims to investigate if ìThe financial institutions are capable of distributing the economic resources efficiently. Empirical evidence supports a sound intermediation process and efficiency in the banking system...

The Great Depression of the 1930s and the Great Credit Crisis of the 2000s had similar causes but elicited strikingly different policy responses. It may still be too early to assess the effectiveness of current policy responses, but it is possible to analyze monetary and fiscal policies in the...

In this paper we investigate the empirical correlates of political centralization using data from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample. We specifically investigate the explanatory power of the standard models of Eurasian state formation which emphasize the importance of high population density,...

This study investigates the impact of board governance features and the presence of foreign, indigenous high society executives and board diversity on levels of IPO underpricing in a unique sample of 62 Initial Primary Offerings (IPOs) from across Sub Saharan African (SSA), excluding South...

The objective of this study was to analyse the changes in the intraday market microstructure behaviour before a takeover announcement for a sample of target, bidder and control (non-target) companies. Under the hypothesis that agents with asymmetric information were operating in the market, the...

This study examines the spatial distribution of Muslim societies shedding light on its geographic origins. The empirical analysis conducted across countries, virtual countries, and ethnicities establishes that geographic inequality and proximity to pre-Islamic trade routes are fundamental...

The aim of this paper is to analyze the importance of human capital on productivity growth for 26 African countries over the period 1976-1996. To estimate productivity change, the Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) growth index is computed. This index is then decomposed into technical...