The paper examines whether the Arab Spring phenomenon was predictable by complete elimination in the dispersion of core demands for better governance, more jobs and stable consumer prices. A methodological innovation of the Generalized Methods of Moments is employed to assess the feasibility and...

This paper examines two dimensions of the software piracy-development nexus to complement existing formal literature. It empirically assesses the incidence of piracy on the Human Development Index (HDI) and its constituents and then the instrumentality of Intellectual Property Right (IPR)...

This article integrates previously missing components of government quality into the governance-piracy nexus in exploring governance mechanisms by which global obligations for the treatment of IPRs are effectively transmitted from international to the national level in the battle against piracy....

In examining some big questions on African development, we provide evidence that dynamics of some development indicators could support both endogenous and neoclassical growth theories in the convergence debate. This paper investigates convergence in real per capita GDP and inequality adjusted...

This paper develops an empirically-relevant framework (a) to examine whether or not the African business environment hinders or promotes the knowledge economy (KE), (b) to determine how the KE which emerges from such an environment affects economic growth, and (c) how growth in turn relates to...

This note reconciles an on-going debate on the effect of foreign aid on corruption by introducing a previously missing heterogeneity dimension of aid. The relationship was estimated using dynamic system GMM and quantile regressions (QR). Results show that both narratives in the debate are...

Purpose – Education as a weapon in the fight against conflict and violence remains widely debated in policy and academic circles. Against the background of growing political instability in Africa and the central role of the knowledge economy in 21st century development, this paper provides...

The study clarifies the questionable economics of foreign aid for inclusive human development. It investigates the effect of a plethora of foreign aid dynamics on the inequality adjusted human development index. Contemporary and non-contemporary OLS, Fixed-effects and a system GMM technique with...

A 2015 World Bank report on attainment of Millennium Development Goals concludes that the number of extremely poor has dropped substantially in all regions with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa. We assess if poverty is in the African gene by revisiting the findings of Ashraf and Galor (2013,...

We survey about 110 recently published studies on Sino-African relations; put some structure on the documented issues before suggesting some solutions and strategies to the identified policy syndromes. The documented issues classified into eight main strands include, China: targeting nations...