It is widely accepted that the costs of underpricing energy are large, whether in advanced or developing countries. This paper explores how large these costs can be by focussing on the size of the external effects that energy subsidies in particular generate in two important sectors—transport...

Transportation is vital to economic and social development, but at the same time generates undesired consequences on local, regional, and global scales. One of the largest challenges is the mitigation of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, to which this sector already contributes...

It is a contentious issue whether large scale mining creates local employment, and the sector has been accused of hurting women’s labor supply and economic opportunities. This paper uses the rapid expansion of mining in Sub-Saharan Africa to analyze local structural shifts. It matches 109...

Bringing together history and economics, this paper presents a historical and processual understanding of women's economic marginalization in Sub-Saharan Africa from the pre-colonial period to the end of colonial rule. It is not that women have not been economically active or productive; it is...

This paper examines the impact of trade facilitation on intra-African trade. The authors examine the role of trade facilitation reforms, such as increased port efficiency, improved customs, and regulatory environments, and upgrading services infrastructure on trade between African countries....

This paper reviews data and research on trade costs for Sub-Saharan African countries. It focuses on: border-related costs, transport costs, costs related to behind-the border issues, and the costs of compliance with rules of origin specific to preferential trade agreements. Trade costs are, on...

This paper concerns the institutional origins of economic development, emphasizing the cases of nineteenth-century India and Africa. Colonial institutions-the law, western style property rights, newspapers and statistical analysis-played an important part in the emergence of Indian public and...

At the outset of China's reform period, the country had a far higher poverty rate than for Africa as a whole. Within five years that was no longer true. This paper tries to explain how China escaped from a situation in which extreme poverty persisted due to failed and unpopular policies. While...

China has been the most successful developing country in this modern era of globalization. Since initiating economic reform after 1978, its economy has expanded at a steady rate over 8 percent per capita, fueling historically unprecedented poverty reduction (the poverty rate declined from over...

This paper provides the results of an international survey of practitioners with experience in facilitating the participation of African smallholder farmers in supply chains for higher-value and/or differentiated agricultural products. It explores their perceptions about the constraints...