This paper examines the dynamic relationship between fiscal decentralisation and poverty in South Africa within a panel data framework. The data used covers the period 2005 to 2011 for the eight metropolitan municipalities making a total of 56 observations. We use household consumption...

In recent years, local governments in South Africa have faced daunting challenges, notably significant service delivery backlogs, poor financial management, corruption, and poor capacity due to lack of skills. As a result, numerous municipalities are deemed to be in financial distress, and...

This paper investigates empirically the integration of bond markets of emerging market economies into the global bond markets from 2003 to 2012. The paper employs factor analysis based on the Arbitrage Pricing Theory to extract global factors from a panel of 38 bond yields of advanced and...

Zimbabwe had witnessed socio-economic challenges that resulted in mass exodus of its populace across its boarders mainly from the late 1990s. Migration can be individual or household strategy for survival and remittances play a role in transforming the household income. Making use of ordinary...

This paper develops a dynamic general equilibrium model with endogenous default on entrepreneur loans and funds borrowed from the central bank (liquidity injections) and investigates the welfare cost of sovereign default. The results show that sovereign default affects production through...

This study analyses the relationship between disaggregated credit extension and financial distress in South Africa. It commences by constructing a composite indicator of financial distress and then examines its correlation with components of disaggregated credit extension. Of particular interest...

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...

I use satellite imagery on night time lights to measure growth across states and local government areas in Nigeria since the return of democracy in 1999. I show that states in Southern Nigeria have grown faster on average than states in the North. I also evaluate the effects of violence on...

This study develops an economic fertility model which explicitly incorporates both the costs of childrearing and contraception behaviour. In this setting, a couple capacity to procreate depends on their fecundity, as well as their contraception and sexual behaviours; and the ideal number of...

This paper analyses the relationship between financial stress indicator variables and monetary policy in South Africa with emphasis on how robust these variables are related to the monetary policy interest rate. The financial stress indicator variables comprise a set of variables from the main...