Drawing on evidence from Africa - especially Ethiopia and Uganda - the authors of this volume draw conclusions about economic policy in the aftermath of civil war. A sample of conclusions follows. Civil wars differ from international wars. They are informal, often have no clear beginning and...

On the basis of a comparative study of 23 episodes involving commodity price shocks we find that both the public and private sectors typically save around half of a windfall gain resulting from a price rise. We argue that private windfalls should be left with the private sector rather than...

Developing countries frequently experience trade shocks and the policy implications of this have been debated for decades.This important book is Volume 1 of a comparative study covering 23 countries, using a common methodology to estimate the effects of shocks. The conventional wisdom has been...

[fre] Ce papier présente un état des lieux de la performance économique de l’Afrique depuis l’indépendance en des termes qui mettent l’accent sur l’importance du facteur géographique. La géographie physique et la géographie humaine de l’Afrique présentent des traits...

Post-Soviet African democratization has introduced elections into contexts that often lack restraints upon the behavior of candidates, resulting in the emergence of voter intimidation, vote-buying, and ballot fraud. We propose a model of electoral competition where, although some voters oppose...

I discuss how aid can support growth in small, isolated economies. Small markets frustrate scale economies and competition. Combined with high transport costs, essential inputs become prohibitively expensive. Breaking the coordination problem requires pio

Using global data we examine the dynamics of migration from developing to developed countries. Origin and destination countries are characterized by substantial differences in incomes, political rights and cultures. Incentives as well as costs shape the decision to migrate. One powerful dynamic...