Despite high growth rates in recent decades, Burkina Faso is still a poor country. The government acknowledges the need for a stronger commitment to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly regarding the reduction of poverty. At the same time, the Burkinabe budget deficit has...

A dynamic computable general equilibrium model based on the PEP standard model developed by Decaluwé et al. (2009) is used to evaluate the impacts of the international crisis on the South African economy. However, we have changed some assumptions in order to better represent South African...

The objective of this paper is to assess the impact of increased public expenditures in education on school participation, skill level of the workforce, occupational choices between self‐employed and wage earners, economic performance, poverty reduction and income distribution. These...

In a first for South Africa, we draw on literature on infrastructure productivity to model dynamic economywide employment impacts of infrastructure investment funded with different fiscal tools. According to the South African investment plan, the policy will affect the stock of infrastructure as...

We examine the economy-wide impact of the child support grant (CSG) on the South African economy using a bottom-up/top-down approach. This allows us to estimate the potential effects on households’ welfare and on the economy following a change in the CSG. Three simulations are presented, in...

This paper reports on a study to provide insights into the magnitude of the shocks associated with the recent global economic crisis in macroeconomic terms in South Africa, the country’s capacity to withstand or cushion these shocks, and the extent of fragility in terms of poverty levels and...

In this study, we analyse the impact of the creation of a customs union among UEMOA (Western African Economic and Monetary Union)countries, with a special emphasis on the labour market structure. The implementation of the customs union reform will translate in most of these countries, into a...

Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models have gained continuously in popularity as an empirical tool for assessing the impact of trade liberalization on agricultural growth, poverty, and income distribution. However, conventional models ignore the channels linking technical change in...