In light of the empirical evidence on clientelism and ethno-regional favouritism in African politics, the present paper examines the relationship between ethnic divisions and clientelism. Specifically, we ask whether – and what type of – ethnic divisions affect the experiences with,...

Firm-level data for the manufacturing sector in Africa, presented in this paper, shows very low levels of investment. A positive effect from profits onto investment is identified in a flexible accelerator specification of the investment function controlling for firm fixed effects. There is...

In this paper two sets of issues are addressed using panel data from the manufacturing sector of five African countries. First, how high are the returns to human relative to physical capital. Second, what is the relative importance of technology and endowments of human and physical capital in...

This study is about institution building with limited resources. Through a case study of the establishment of a supreme audit institution (SAI) in Rwanda, we examine the tensions between institutional first-best benchmarks and local operational constraints in a developing country...

Can African countries learn from the development experiences of other regions? Or are the continent’s development challenges unique? This paper looks at the development experience of the Nordic countries, especially Sweden, from the nineteenth century and discusses the extent to which the...

This paper seeks to measure and explain changes in incomes, inequality, and poverty in Kenya. It starts from a very long-term perspective covering the last century, but then focuses on a more detailed analysis of the recent period for which data from household surveys are available. We seek to...

This study analyses how changes in factor abundance and trade policy have affected factor prices in Kenya since 1964. First there was a period of capital deepening, but this was reversed from 1982. As a result, there has been a shift of production towards the labour-intensive informal sector....

This paper analyses the evolution of wage inequality in Kenya between 1964 and 2000. Our measure of wage inequality is the ratio of wages in manufacturing to wages in agriculture, which can be seen as an indicator of sectoral wage-inequality or as a proxy for skilled to unskilled wages. We find...

This paper seeks to measure and explain changes in incomes, inequality, and poverty in Kenya. It starts from a very long-term perspective covering the last century, but then focuses on a more detailed analysis of the recent period for which data from household surveys are available. We seek to...

This paper reviews recent research dealing with the relationships between economic growth, income distribution, and poverty. This generally fails to find any systematic pattern of change in income distribution during recent decades. Neither does it find any systematic link from fast growth to...