In West Africa, recorded intra-regional trade is small but informal cross-border trade (ICBT) is pervasive, despite regional integration schemes intended to promote official trade. We argue that ICBT must be understood in light of two features of West African national boundaries: divergent...

This paper provides a new perspective on Chinese international competitiveness in manufacturing using relative unit labour costs. We find that Chinese unit labour costs are about 25-40 per cent of US labour costs. They are also low relative to costs in the EU, Japan, Mexico, Korea and most other...

Does trade with low-wage countries steal American jobs and, hence, rob American workers of higher wages and a higher standard of living? Most economists think trade is not guilty as charged. Instead, they cite concepts such as comparative and absolute advantage and differences in productivity to...

Despite some favourable conditions and a number of policy reforms, Senegal's participation in the global economy remains tenuous. This paper uses a Ricardian framework to study Senegal's international competitiveness in manufacturing. Wages, productivity and unit labour costs in Senegal are...

This paper documents and analyses the predominance of informal employment in Africa and shows that lack of demand for labour rather than worker characteristics is the main reason for pervasive underemployment. Integration into the global economy and expor