African countries have sought to replicate the success of East Asia by implementing special economic zones. Despite decades of international experience, there remains no blueprint for successful special economic zone policies, and the majority of special economic zones fall well below...

Extractive industries are spread across mining of metal and minerals, oil and gas, among others. Multinationals in these sectors are confronted with different challenges ranging from corruption, political risk, economic uncertainty, sunk costs, and the long-gestation periods to execute projects....

Estimating the impact of HIV/AIDS epidemic on economic growth is challenging because of endogeneity concerns. In this paper, we use novel data on male circumcision and distance from the first HIV outbreak as instrumental variables for the HIV/AIDS epidemic in 241 regions across 25 countries in...

The paper explores the paths towards building institutional foundations for inclusive development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Viewing institutional configurations as a system of multiple equilibria, the concepts of endogenous institutions and institutional changes are used to address the question of...

This paper is a contribution to the empirics of climate change and its effect on sustainable economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using data on two climate variables, temperature and precipitation, and employing panel cointegration techniques, we estimate the short- and long-run effects of...

We consider economic development of sub-Saharan Africa from the perspective of slow convergence of productivity, both across sectors and firms within sectors. Why have 'productivity enclaves', islands of high productivity in a sea of smaller low-productivity firms, not diffused more rapidly? We...

The distinct features of inclusive growth within the context of sub-Saharan Africa are identified. The anatomy of growth is analysed by exploring the interrelationship among growth, inequality, and poverty. The present growth spell appears to have been relatively inclusive. The recent structural...

The Mexico City Policy (MCP) prohibits the United States Agency for International Development from providing aid to international non-governmental organizations that provide abortion-related services. This paper employs a panel data of 151 developing countries over the period of 1988 - 2010, to...

With the aim of reducing women's greater unpaid care work than men&'s and increasing women's paid employment, this paper examines the extent to which World Bank investments address unpaid care work. The paper conducts an in-depth gender analysis of 36 World Bank employment-related projects in...

Due to increasing population pressure on limited cultivable land in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), farm size has been shrinking, fallow periods have been shortened, and soil fertility has been declining. In accordance with the Boserupian evolutionary theory and the Hayami-Ruttan induced...