The African economies, particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) stand today at an important crossroads. During the 1980s, for the average African country, GDP per capita fell at a rate of 0.5 percent per annum; in the 1990s it rose slightly at a rate of 0.3 percent per annum. However, in...

Drawing insights from the literature and from the author's own survey work on contractual practices among manufacturers and traders in Africa, we study the transition from anonymous to personal to impersonal exchange. Using a dynamic game with heterogenous agents and information sharing, we...

Drawing insights from the literature on credit and labor markets and from the author`s own survey work on contractual practices among manufacturers and traders in Africa, this paper investigates the spontaneous emergence of markets in the presence of heterogeneous agents. Using a dynamic game...

This paper examines changes in individual real incomes in South Africa between 1995 and 2000. We document substantial declines--on the order of 40%--in real incomes for both men and women. The brunt of the income decline appears to have been shouldered by the young and the non-white. We argue...

“Being rich in energy resources – a blessing or a curse” finds that an energy resource curse plagues many EU supplier states. This in turn directly affects Europe’s energy supply security and threatens to engulf Europe in unwanted hostilities at home and abroad. The study addresses seven...

The author argues that although the collapse of the Doha “Development” Round in early summer of 2006 was triggered by the refusal of the United States to agree to the reduction of the ceiling on the amount of domestic subsidies paid to the US farmers, there were some fundamental reasons...

Abstract Both Mexico and China have started export orientation in some industries, through assembly operations, based on imported inputs a couple of decades ago. The literature on industrialization, has discussed the questions of import substitutions and outward-orientation mainly as alternative...

Most of the people all over the world claim that globalization is a result of dynamic interactions between economic, technological, social and political factors. The aim of this paper is to document some stylized facts on this phenomenon in order to take

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <I>Environment, Development and Sustainability</I>, 2010, 12(1), 49-62.<P> What is a 'sustainable nation’ and how can we identify and rank ‘sustainable nations’? Are nations producing and consuming in a sustainable way? Aggregate indicators have...</p></i>

After overcoming various financial crises in the mid-90's and early millennium (Tequila, Asian, Russian, Brazil, Argentina and Ecuador) Latin America found a proper environment conducive to reach sustained growth and macroeconomic stability. Endogenous elements - such as credit growth, the...