The heavy dependence and inefficient utilization of biomass resources have contributed to the depletion of forest resources in Ethiopia, while the use of traditional cooking technology, one source of inefficient biomass resource use, has been linked to indoor air pollution and poor health. In...

In addition to the conventional linear cointegration test, this paper tests the asymmetry relationship between fiscal revenue and expenditure, by making a distinction between the adjustment of positive (budget surplus) and negative (budget deficit) deviations from equilibrium. The analysis uses...

The paper estimates the impact of the South African Child Support Grant (CSG) on child health, nutrition and education. Data from the 2008 South African National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) are used. Two non-experimental treatment evaluation techniques, both relying on propensity scores, are...

This study argues that the adaptation measures farmers take to reduce the negative impacts of climate change do affect farmers’ efficiency of production. To support this argument, two steps were followed to understand how climatic factors especially long term average seasonal rainfall and...

We estimate the risk attitudes of a large sample of small-scale fishers from various fishing communities along the west coast of South Africa, using subjects’ choices over lotteries with real monetary prizes. We find that participants are moderately risk averse and that risk attitudes...

The study investigates the main factors considered by South African telecommunications firms when making a decision to undertake Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This encompasses the reasons for investing, the methods of entry into the identified market and the...

In this paper we focus on the role of political and economic institutions in Mozambique’s development. We produce a set of institutional indicators for Mozambique for the period 1900 through to 2005. The first index tracks political freedoms and is unique in its duration and complexity....

Social housing projects often face substantial “Not-in-my-backyard†(NIMBY) sentiment and as a result are frequently plagued by local opposition from communities who argue that nearby property prices will be affected adversely by these developments. International hedonic pricing...

In standard models of Bayesian learning agents reduce their uncertainty about an eventÂ’s true probability because their consistent estimator concentrates almost surely around this probabilityÂ’s true value as the number of observations becomes large. This paper takes the empirically...

Overreliance on biomass energy, such as firewood and charcoal, for cooking in developing countries has contributed to high rates of deforestation and resulted in substantial indoor pollution which has negatively impacted the health of many individuals. However, the effectiveness of public...