The world of agriculture is in a state of crisis. And nowhere is this more important than for Africa, where economies depend heavily on agriculture and hunger is on the rise. Agriculture is in the headlines, but for the wrong reasons: failures instead of successes. It is receiving rare political...

Improved water harvesting and soil erosion control using the remarkably simple practice of contour stone bunding is shown to increase grain yields by 41% in low rainfall regions of Burkina Faso. Empirical results show that yield increases in food crops help food-buying farm households...

It is broadly recognised that vigorous agricultural growth is essential for African development, both in support of aggregate economic growth and a structural transformation of the economy towards industrialisation, and of poverty reduction and improved food security. For the first, this is...

Using matched employer--employee data from eleven African countries, we investigate if there is job sorting in African labour markets. We find that much of the wage gap associated with education is driven by selection across occupations and firms. This is consistent with educated workers being...

This paper tests two alternative models of selection into export: lower costs and better market familiarity. Both are potentially subject to learning-by-doing, but differ in the type of experience required. Learning to produce at lower cost -- what we call productivity learning -- depends on...

Not only does livestock make an important contribution to rural incomes and export earnings in the Sahel, it is also kept as insurance against weather risk. Fluctuations in livestock prices can therefore trigger food entitlement failures. Using monthly price data from Niger, we show that...

This paper develops a theoretical model of land leasing that includes transaction costs of enforcing labour effort, risk pooling motives and non-tradable capital inputs. We test the implications of this model compared to those of the "Marshallian" (unenforceable labour effort) and "New School"...

This study looks at public service delivery in rural areas of Madagascar. The blockade of the central highlands of Madagascar by a defeated president let us examine the short-term effect of a large unanticipated macro shock and subsequent elimination of user fees on the rural delivery of health...

This paper investigates the relationship between criminal activity and geographical isolation. Using data from Madagascar, we show that, after we control for population composition and risk factors, crime increases with distance from urban centres and, with few exceptions, decreases with...