This paper takes a first step in analysing how a monetary union performs in the presence of labour market asymmetries. Differences in wage flexibility, market power and country sizes are allowed for in a setting with both country-specific and aggregate shocks. The implications of asymmetries for...

The paper's background is a revival of the historically dominant narrative on the large-scale and plantation farming (LSF and PF) in Africa, in reaction to the contemporary phenomenon of 'land grabbing'. The historical antecedents of this narrative are examined and its central contentions - that...