Member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are expected to form a West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) by 2004 whereby member countries would use a common currency in an attempt to promote regional integration. Evidence suggests that reduction in transaction cost as...

Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models have been widely used for quantitative analysis of global economic issues. However, CGE models are frequently criticized for resting on weak empirical foundations. This paper builds on recent work in macro-econometric estimation, developing an approach...

As in other countries in the southern Africa region, a human development catastrophe is unfolding in Mozambique. Recently released data estimate HIV prevalence rates amongst the adult population in the year 2000 at around 12% with substantial regional variation. Due to the magnitude of the...

For the past two decades, Bangladesh has enjoyed steady growth in per capita incomes enabling a significant reduction in poverty. An increase in rice productivity, achieved through a combination of improved seeds, increased fertilizer use, and public and private investments in irrigation, played...

Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models have been widely used for quantitative analysis of global economic issues. However, CGE models are frequently criticized for resting on weak empirical foundations. This paper builds on recent work in macro-econometric estimation, developing an approach...

Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Models have been widely used by researchers around the world for quantitative analysis of economy-wide shocks. However, CGE models are often criticized for resting on weak empirical foundations. Among others, the arbitrary choice of values for key...

This dissertation consists of three essays. They examine diverse economic phenomena, but they are bound by a need to treat randomness effectively and practically. Each essay seeks to demonstrate enhanced capacity to effectively and practically treat randomness in specific problems of data...

In this paper, we present a comparative analysis of the extent to which indirect taxes, tariffs, and exchange rates affected relative price incentives for agricultural production in a representative sample of 15 developing countries in the 1990s. Empirical studies from the 1980s, using partial...