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,...

This study assesses the relationship between tribalism (the tribalism index) and government effectiveness (per the World Bank) in 65 countries using cross-sectional data averages from 2000-2010. This study finds that countries with high-tribal populations generally enjoy bad governance in terms...

The purpose of this study is to assess the nexus between intelligence (or human capital) and statistical capacity in developing countries. The line of inquiry is motivated essentially by: (i) the scarce literature devoted to elucidating poor statistics in developing countries and (ii) an...

This study assesses the relationship between tribalism (the tribalism index) and government effectiveness (per the World Bank) in 60 countries using cross-sectional data. This study finds that countries with high tribal populations generally enjoy bad governance in terms of government...

The study focuses on the political economy of oil resources management in Nigeria with the sole purpose of showcasing how far the country has gone in effectively managing its crude oil proceeds. It presents a brief history on the excess crude account as well as the sovereign wealth fund in...

The main objective of this paper is to contribute to in-depth literature on the relationship between growth and the informal sector in the presence of corruption. The impact of the interaction between growth and corruption on economic performance (increase or decrease of the informal sector)...

This paper is interested in explaining the causes of the simultaneous evolution between economic growth and informality. Using a large annual panel of African countries with a time series of 25 years, ours results show that when the corruption rate is above (below) a threshold of 1.3577,...

With the proliferation of technology used to prate software, this paper answers some key questions in policy decision making. Dynamic panel Generalized Methods of Moments and Two Stage Least Squares are employed. IPRs laws (treaties) are instrumented with government quality dynamics to assess...

In the current efforts towards harmonizing IPRs regimes in the African continent, this paper provides answers to four key questions relevant in the policy decision making processes. After empirically examining the questions, the following findings are established. (1) In comparison to common law...

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....