The incredibly low levels of learning and the generally dysfunctional public sector schooling systems in many (though not all) developing countries are the result of a capability trap (Pritchett et al. 2010). Two phenomena reinforce persistent failure of

Recent evidence from an exhaustive political economy study of growth of African economies.the growth project of the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC) suggests that .policy syndromes. have substantially contributed to the generally poor growth in

The study examines Zambia.s evolving aid relationship in relation to the country.s democratic trajectory. The impact of aid in terms of democratic consolidation is linked to the development of the party system, the efficacy of key democratic institutions, and accountability in relation to...

Malaria still claims a heavy human and economic toll, specifically in sub-Saharan Africa. Even though the causality between malaria and poverty is presumably bi-directional, malaria plays a role in the economic difficulties of the region. This article pro

Sub-Saharan African cities have been growing at historically unprecedented rates. Since the early 1970s, they have welcomed international assistance involving a succession of major thematic objectives. The main agency involved in urban assistance has been

This study examines the role of politics on decentralization and service delivery in South Africa, with a specific focus on Johannesburg and Cape Town. The research delineates how national decentralization has affected service delivery responsibilities an

A natural way of viewing an inequality or a poverty measure is in terms of the vector distance between an actual (empirical) distribution of incomes and some appropriately normative distribution (reflecting a perfectly equal distribution of incomes, or a

There is an inherent tension between implementing organizations.which have specific objectives and narrow missions and mandates.and executive organizations.which provide resources to multiple implementing organizations. Ministries of finance/planning/budg

Prioritizing public investments requires information on relative returns that are difficult to derive from disparate evaluation studies. This paper presents a .hybrid. approach that combines ex post evaluation data with an economy-wide model for experimen

A number of studies document an in-group bias in social dilemma situations. While group structure and dynamics are important in shaping in-group favouritism, less attention has been paid to individual characteristics affecting favouritism. Using data from