Commodity price shocks are an important type of external shock and are often cited as a problem for economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. We choose nine Sub Saharan African countries that are heavily dependent on a single agricultural commodity for a significant portion of their income. This...

Commodity price shocks are an important type of external shock and are often cited as a problem for economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper quantifies the impact of agricultural commodity price shocks using a near vector autoregressive model. The novel aspect of this model is that we...

This paper examines the connections of structural change and economic openness to labour productivity growth using a panel data set of 41 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 1991-2015. A dynamic panel model of cross-country productivity growth is estimated using the least squares with...

In view of the remarkable growth performance of sub-Saharan African countries since the mid-1990s, we investigate the drivers of economic growth in the region. Above all, we find that more investment, enhanced macroeconomic stability, less conflicts, improved terms of trade, and better...

Purpose - The present study aimed to examine the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICT) diffusion, financial development and economic growth in the panel of developing countries for 2005-2019. Design/methodology/approach - The study employed the principal component...

Estimating the impact of HIV/AIDS epidemic on economic growth is challenging because of endogeneity concerns. In this paper, we use novel data on male circumcision and distance from the first HIV outbreak as instrumental variables for the HIV/AIDS epidemic in 241 regions across 25 countries in...

The question of what really drives economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been debated for many decades now. However, there is still a lack of clarity on variables crucial for driving growth as prior contributions have been executed at the backdrop of preferential selection of...

We estimate the respective contributions of institutions, geography, and trade in determining cross-country income levels using recently developed instruments for institutions and trade. Our results indicate that the quality of institutions 'trumps' everything else. Controlling for institutions,...