In this paper we examine the impact of inflation on financial development in Brazil. The data available permit us to cover the eventful period between 1985 and 2002 and the results - based initially on time series and then on panel time series data and analysis, and robust for different...

We examine in this paper the impact that financial development had on earnings inequality in Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s. The empirical evidence presented - based initially on time series, and then on panel time series and panel data and analysis - shows that broader access to financial and...

This paper analyses the modernisation hypothesis in the sub-Saharan African region. Using a sample of 48 countries from 1960 to 2010 and dynamic panel data analysis, we find a significant and negative relationship between income and democracy, an indication that the hypothesis may not hold in...

In this paper we test for the populist view of inflation in South America during the eventful period between 1970 and 2007, a period which captures the latest democratic transition in the continent, episodes of hyperinflation and finally macroeconomic stabilisation. The results—based on panel...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the role of house prices in determining the dynamic behaviour of consumption in South Africa using a panel vector autoregression approach to provincial level panel data covering the period of 1996-2010. With the shocks being identified using the...

We study the effects of different levels of education on fertility in 48 sub-Saharan African countries between 1970 and 2010. The results, based on panel data analysis with fi?xed effects and instrumental variables, show how that lower education levels do not have a significant effect on...

This paper empirically examines the effect of house price changes on economic growth across provinces in South Africa. The economic impact of house prices is estimated using a panel data set that covers all nine provinces in South Africa from 1996 to 2010. We find that when heterogeneity,...

We investigate in this paper the hypothesis that when democracies are young, or still fragile and unconsolidated, the size of government tends to increase, predictably in an attempt of redistribution, or to buy out the electorate, so that democracy becomes acceptable and "the only game in town"....

We investigate in this paper what are the main determinants of government and external debt in South America. Our sample purposely includes all nine South American countries that re-democratised in the last thirty years or so, and the data cover the period 1970-2007. The results, based on...