Information problems are pervasive in developing economies and can hinder productivity growth. This paper studies how much rural producers in developing countries can learn from their own experience to redress important information gaps. It builds a model of learning from experience and applies...

This paper tests the linkage between a binary treatment (rural road improvement project) and a continuous outcome (cotton productivity) in Zambia's agro-based Eastern Province as measured by repeated cross-sections of farm-level data from the Zambian post-harvest survey (PHS). We use this PHS...

This paper investigates the dynamic impacts of rural road improvements on farm productivity and crop choices in Zambia's Eastern Province. There are several channels through which the feeder road improvements impact on farmers. Our aim is to estimate whether the differential outcomes in the five...

In the middle of the nineties the rural population in Burkina Faso was seriously hit by rising food prices. Whereas cotton farmers were able to cope with this shock given the simultaneous boom in the cotton sector, food crop farmers had to withdraw children from school and to let them work more...

In Tunesien, Ägypten und Libyen wurden 2011 nach Massenprotesten und blutigen Auseinandersetzungen die langjährigen Machthaber Ben Ali, Mubarak und Qaddafi gestürzt. Alle drei Staaten befinden sich seither in einem noch nicht abgeschlossenen Transformationsprozess. Diese Umbruchphase ist...

This article challenges claims that liberalising state regulated markets in developing countries may induce lasting economic development. The analysis of the rise of tourism in Egypt during the last three decades suggests that the effects of liberalisation and structural adjustment are...

This paper argues that trade and capital account reforms within autocracies underlie the primacy of foreign currency procurement. A longitudinal comparison of four countries (Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Jordan) in the Middle East and North Africa region shows a historical sequencing of reforms....