Ghana is experiencing its third gold rush, and this paper sheds light on the socioeconomic impacts of this rapid expansion in industrial production. The paper uses a rich data set consisting of geocoded household data combined with detailed information on gold mining activities, and conducts two...

Over the past decade Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a remarkable turnaround in economic performance. After years of stagnation, economic growth has spurted gross domestic product (GDP) grew from an annual average rate of less than 2 percent in 1978-95 to nearly 6 percent over 2003-08. Inflation is...

Africa’s Pulse is a biannual publication containing an analysis of the near-term macro-economic outlook for the region. It also includes a section focusing on a topic that represents a particular development challenges for the continent. It is produced by the Office of the Chief Economist for...

This paper estimates the causal effects of civil war on years of education in the context of a school-going age cohort that is exposed to armed conflict in Cote d'Ivoire. Using year and department of birth to identify an individual's exposure to war, the difference-in-difference outcomes...

The Millennium Development Goal of halving the incidence of extreme poverty from its 1990 level will be achieved in 2015, and the international development community is now moving to a new goal of ?ending extreme poverty.? However, the data needed to monitor progress remain severely limited....