Chad has emerged as an important counter-terrorism partner in the Lake Chad Basin and the broader Sahel-Sahara region due to its recent political stability and military contribution to security efforts in these troubled zones. However, a closer look at developments in domestic politics, notably...

The recent rise of jihadist movements in West Africa, including Boko Haram in the Lake Chad region and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its affiliates in the Sahel-Saharan region, has puzzled many observers. The easy spread of the jihadist ideology, the jihadist movements’ success in...

This paper examines the linkages between Boko Haram activities in northeastern Nigeria and declined activities in regional agricultural markets. Building on data from both the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), the...

The Sahel and the Sahara are faced with exceptional political instability involving a combination of rebellions, jihadist insurgencies, coups d’état, protest movements and illegal trafficking. The backdrop to this accumulated violence is a globalised security environment, which blurs the...

The North Korean economy has been a statistical black hole for decades but is undergoing substantial transformations. Rapid post-war industrialisation was not sustained beyond the mid-1960s and South Korea’s economy far outpaced North Korea’s during the next three decades, during which trend...

Colombia has engaged in a sustained process of fiscal decentralisation over the past decades. This paper analyses three aspects of fiscal performance for Colombia’s departments. First, it studies the sustainability aspects of subnational finances by estimating a fiscal reaction function....

There is no single “best” indicator for analysing general government debt. This paper examines the various issues in defining and measuring debt, and explores other data which could be useful, both within and beyond the general government debt concept, to better track and analyse fiscal...

The recent euro area sovereign debt crisis has shown the importance of market reactions for the sustainability of debt. The objective of this paper is to calculate endogenous government debt limits given the markets assessment of the probability to default. The estimated primary balance reaction...

The sharp rise in debt experienced by most OECD countries raises questions about the prudent debt level countries should target. It also raises questions about the fiscal frameworks needed to reach them and to accommodate cyclical fluctuations along the path towards a prudent debt target. The...

Fiscal constitutions comprise the set of rules and frameworks guiding fiscal policy that are enshrined in a country’s fundamental laws. This paper compares the fiscal constitutions of 15 federal countries by empirically assessing five building blocks: 1) the power of sub-national governments...