This special section aims to advance scholarship on well-being and happiness in Africa. The section covers theoretical, conceptual and empirical contributions which address relevant areas that enhance extant knowledge on linkages between poverty, happiness and well-being in Africa.

This study complements existing literature by investigating how investment-driven finance affects inequality in Africa. The empirical evidence is based on restricted and unrestricted Two-Stage Least Squares and a pre-crisis periodicity (1980-2002). Inequality is measured with estimated household...

This study establishes economic growth needed for supply-side mobile money drivers in developing countries to be positively related to mobile money innovations in the perspectives of mobile money accounts, the mobile phone used to send money, and the mobile phone used to receive money. The...

The present study examines the relevance of globalization in lifelong gender inclusive education for structural transformation. The focus of the research is on 41 countries in Africa using data from 2004 to 2021. The generalized method of moments (GMM) is employed to assess the problem statement...

This study provides minimum economic growth (or GDP growth) critical masses or thresholds that should be exceeded in order for demand-side mobile money factors to favorably drive mobile money innovations for financial inclusion in developing countries. The considered mobile money innovations...

The present research is focused on how lifelong gender inclusive education moderates the effect of governance on structural transformation. It is based on a sample of forty-one countries in Africa for the period 2004 to 2021 and the adopted empirical strategy is the generalized method of moments...

The transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has shifted the policy debate from growth to 'quality of growth' (QG). The April 2015 World Bank publication on MDGs extreme poverty targets has revealed that poverty has been decreasing in all...

Africa's overall knowledge index fell between 2000 and 2009. South Korea's economic miracle is largely due to a knowledge-based development strategy that holds valuable lessons for African countries in their current pursuit towards knowledge economies. Using updated data (1996-2010), this paper...

This study uses a new dataset to provide comparative gaps, benchmarking with best performers and policy syndromes of growth quality in 93 developing countries with data for the period 1990-2011. Sigma and Beta estimation strategies are used to provide between and within cross-country...

In the first critical assessment of knowledge economy dynamic paths in Africa and the Middle East, but for a few exceptions, we find overwhelming support for diminishing cross-country disparities in knowledge-base-economy dimensions. The paper employs all the four components of the World Bank's...