Accurately measuring oil production in low-governance contexts is an important task. Many terrorist organizations and insurgencies -- including the Islamic State group, also known as ISIL/ISIS or Daesh -- tap oil as a revenue source. Understanding spatial and temporal variation in production in...

Ghana's economic growth picked up in the early 2000s and has been exceptionally strong over the past few years, with price booms of its main commodity exports, gold and cocoa, and the initiation of commercial oil production in 2011. This paper examines recent econometric evidence on Ghana's...

Large oil reserves off the coast of Brazil may substantially increase the country?s oil revenue in the future. A natural resource "curse" could be the consequence if an appropriate share of the oil revenue is not invested. This issue is addressed in this paper for Brazil both theoretically and...

Nigeria's oil boom has not brought an end to perennial stagnation in the non-oil economy. Is this the unavoidable consequence of the resource boom or have misguided policies contributed? This paper indicates that the extreme volatility of expenditure rather than Dutch Disease effects are behind...

This paper attempts to explain the determinants of the propensity to armed struggle and the probability of participation by individuals in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria using primary (micro) data. While grievance appears to be pervasive among individuals and communities in the region and can...

This paper studies the performance of alternative prediction models for conflict. The analysis contrasts the performance of conventional approaches based on predicted probabilities generated by binary response regressions and random forests with two unconventional classification algorithms. The...

This study assesses the accuracy of time-series econometric methods in forecasting electricity demand in developing countries. The analysis of historical time series for 106 developing countries over 1960-2012 demonstrates that econometric forecasts are highly accurate for the majority of these...

In low- and middle-income countries, scaling essential health interventions to achieve health development targets is constrained by the lack of skilled health professionals to deliver services. This paper takes a labor market approach to project future health workforce demand based on an...

This study develops an end-use energy demand analysis model for Romania to project energy demand by sector and end-use for 2015-50. The study finds that Romania's energy demand in 2050 would be 34 percent higher than the level in 2013. The industry sector wouldbe the largest final...