This study investigates the causal links among agricultural imports, agriculture productivity, and economic growth in 40 sub-Saharan African countries over the period 1990-2015. Granger causality tests are applied to infer direction of causality, and the generalized two-stage least squares...

This paper uses panel data of 42 sub-Saharan Africa countries from 2005 to 2015 to examine the effect of aid for trade (AfT) on export diversification. The average Hirschman-Herfindahl index measure of 0.77 indicates that the export basket of sub-Saharan African countries is very narrow. This is...

Monetary coordination is high on the agenda of different regional organizations in Africa. Economic benefits of a common currency, like lower transaction cost, increased macroeconomic stability, or the shielding of central banks against political pressure from nationalist elites and their...

The globalized Western culture of innovation, as propagated by major aid institutions, does not necessarily lead to empowerment or improvement of the well-being of the stakeholders. On the contrary, it often blocks viable indigenous innovation cultures. In African societies and African Diasporas...

In the past decades the involvement of local experts in the planning and evaluation of development programs has steadily increased. Ownership of development planning is propagated as major aim of bilateral and international development co-operation. Yet, the quality and performance of many local...

About fifty years after the independence of most former colonies on the African continent, books on African nationalism again rank high on the agenda of the international academic discussion. A selection of three recent publications demonstrates the advances made in scholarly analysis in the...

The analysis of African occult belief systems provides a unique example for demonstrating that seemingly outdated and exotic African modes of thought, such as the belief in magic and witchcraft, are modern and have significant impact on social, economic and political structures. Official...

Despite a long-standing controversy about aid-effectiveness in general and the impact of aid-dependency on governance in particular, little is known on the effect of donors policies on civic agency for democratization in aid dependent autocratic regimes. In this study it is argued that the...

El objetivo de este trabajo es estimar el potencial sesgo pro-pobre en la actual estructura de protección en seis países de África Sub-Sahariana (ASS), es decir, si redistribuye ingresos de los hogares ricos a los pobres. También exploramos la medida en que las barreras que enfrentan los...

Natural resources in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from a bad reputation. Oil and diamonds, particularly, have been blamed for a number of Africa's illnesses such as poverty, corruption, dictatorship and war. This paper outlines the different areas and transmission channels of how this so-called...