"The paper provides a first, systematic benchmarking of infrastructure performance in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) countries (South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, and Swaziland) in four major sectors-electricity, water and sanitation, information and communication technology,...

In 2010, Kazakhstan entered into a customs union with Belarus and Russia. The first, relatively easy step in the implementation of the customs union was accomplished in 2010 with the adoption of a common external tariff, with varying exceptions in each of the three member countries. It is the...

The Southern African Customs Union (SACU) is the most unequal region in the world. While there has been some progress in recent years, inequality has remained almost stagnant in the most unequal countries. Using an innovative framework, this report provides a systematic and comprehensive...

"By developing a simple theoretical model of the impact of market integration on sectoral output and employment in a poor rural setting, this paper demonstrates that trade can induce asymmetric growth. Under certain, plausible, assumptions, the non-farm sector will grow much faster than the...

"This paper analyzes the effects of capital controls and crises on international financial integration, using data on stocks from emerging economies that trade in domestic and international markets. The cross-market premium (the ratio between the domestic and international market price of...

"South Asia has attracted global attention because it has experienced rapid GDP growth over the last two decades. What is not so well known is that South Asia is the least integrated region in the world. South Asia has opened its door to the rest of the world but it remains closed to its...

"The authors argue that the cross-market premium (the ratio between the domestic and the international market price of cross-listed stocks) provides a valuable measure of international financial integration, reflecting accurately the factors that segment markets and inhibit price arbitrage....