This paper examines systematically the growth effects of trade integration in Sub-Saharan Africa. It complements and improves upon the empirical literature in two aspects: first, it jointly estimates the impact of different dimensions of trade integration, namely, trade volumes, export/trade...

The climate change challenge and the growth of the Islamic finance industry, together with the increase in socially responsible investing, could position green sukuk as a key instrument for financing clean energy and resilient infrastructure projects as well as shorter-term energy efficiency...

This paper investigates the costs and benefits of concluding double tax treaties with investment hubs. Based on a sample of 41 African economies from 1985-2015, the results suggest that signing treaties with investment hubs is not associated with additional investments; yet, these treaties tend...

Women's ownership, use, and control over property matter for their well-being and agency and can influence outcomes for the second generation -- women's daughters and sons. Additionally, gender gaps in property ownership induce allocative inefficiencies and foregone economic output, thus having...

The adoption of the shared prosperity goal by the World Bank in 2013 and Sustainable Development Goal 10, on inequality, by the United Nations in 2015 should strengthen the focus of development interventions and cooperation on the income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution...

Improving electricity access in low-income countries is a challenging problem because of the high costs of grid extension and low demand for grid electricity in rural areas. This study elucidates these constraints by analyzing poor households' willingness-to-pay for different types of...

This paper examines the growth effects of different dimensions of international trade integration -- notably, volume, diversification, and natural resource dependence -- in Sub-Saharan Africa. First, the paper documents the recent trends in these foreign trade dimensions for the region and the...

This paper assesses the relation between access to markets and cultivated land in Sub-Saharan Africa. Making use of a geo-referenced panel over three decades (1970-2005) during which the road network was significantly improved, the analysis finds a modest but significant positive association...

Improving the productivity of smallholder farms in Sub-Saharan Africa offers the best chance to reduce poverty among this generation of rural poor, by building on the limited resources farming households already possess. It is also the best and shortest path to meet rising food needs. Using...

This paper explores the economic impacts of two related tracks of China's expected transformation?economic slowdown and rebalancing away from investment toward consumption?and estimates the spillovers for the rest of the world, with a special focus on Sub-Saharan African countries. The paper...