Within Popo society in Pointe Noire, Congo, fishermen sell their fish to their wives at a price slightly below the local market price. The wives process the fish and re-sell it in distant markets, making a profit they mainly re-invest in their husband's fishing activities. The present paper...

This paper presents three propositions about tax collection in local authorities in Tanzania. First, revenue performance depends on the degree of coercion involved in tax enforcement. Second, the extent of coercion depends on the bargaining powers of the stakeholders involved in the tax...

Amartya Sen, in his most recent book Development as Freedom, argues that expansion of human freedom should both be viewed as the primary end and the principle means of development. This paper provides an overview and a critical scrutiny of the Senian perspective from the point of view of an...

This note reviews the game theoretic literature with the aim of highlighting the similarities and dissimilarities between what we term traditional game theory and evolutionary game theory. The focus is on the contributions of evolutionary game theory to the body of knowledge at the disposal of...

The growth of Africa's towns and cities has outpaced local authority capacity in terms of management, infrastructure, and financing. Many African towns and cities are now facing a governance crisis. Accordingly, the capability and capacity of urban local government to provide basic services to a...

Virtually all peasant household models assume efficient allocation of household productive resources between different household activities. In an African context characterised by different plots of land being cultivated and controlled by different household members, the efficiency assumptions...

We evaluate the impact of disasters on income mobility by drawing on "natural experiments". While the poor have a much higher probability of remaining poor when entering a crisis compared to normal times, there is also a negative effect in the year after. Richer households seem to be unaffected....

This Working Paper contains a full report from a Seminar on Regional Energy Co-operation, Luanda, 12-14 February 2002. Norwegian involvement in the energy sector in Southern Africa is considerable. Energy is a major area in Norwegian co-operation and includes a number of countries within SADC....

This paper examines recent experiences from sub-Saharan Africa in combating corruption in customs. It argues that integrity reforms have been too focused on reforming formal institutions, and too little attention has been paid to the political economy of reforms and the role of informal...

A number of studies suggest that natural resources can have a negative impact on the developing prospects of countries. This paper reviews political economy models of the resource curse, and draws implications of these models in terms of policy and research priorities. The term impartiality...