Employing 90,000 firm-level observations from 13 countries over a seven year period, and controlling for an extensive set of firm-level characteristics, industry effects and country-level institutional variables, we provide a conceptual framework and empirical analysis of how culture influences...

The global Aid for Trade/AfT Initiative was inspired by the Doha Round of WTO negotiations. It involved specific aid commitments as well as a broad agreement on categories of AfT, and principles of delivery (outlined by a WTO Task Force in 2006). The WTO and the OECD were tasked with monitoring...

Four-fifths of the adult population do not have access to formal financial services in Nigeria. This paper examines the characteristics of 'unbanked' households in Nigeria, investigates the extent and determinants of supply and demand side barriers, and explores the specific role played by...

Is the mobile banking revolution overcoming the tyranny of distance to bank infrastructure and improving financial inclusion in sub-Saharan Africa? Focusing on Kenya, this paper uses Global Positioning System (GPS) data to investigate the importance of distance and time to bank branch for...

Height is widely used as an objective measure of health status. It is commonly used in the large body of research evaluating welfare trends in historic populations and the long-run impacts of childhood environment. However, few research papers have examined the extent, causes or consequences of...

I estimate the short-run dynamic effect of fiscal shocks on real wages for a panel of euro area countries. The main findings are in line with the Neo-Keynesian predictions that real wages increase in response to spending shocks. However, the scale of the wage response depends on the type of...

Sub-Saharan Africa's economy grew rapidly from 2004 to 2008, largely driven by Asian investment and trade. While much investment has been in primary commodities, Asian-owned manufacturing and other businesses in Africa, despite growing rapidly, have received very little attention. Using survey...

How does an increase in food prices at the border impact poverty in Uganda given the strong spatial heterogeneity of the country and its limited domestic transportation and communication networks? Recently, a number of studies on the impact of international food prices on poverty in developing...

This paper analyses the poverty impacts of an economic partnership agreement (EPA) between Uganda and the EU. As Ugandan exports are also eligible for duty-free access to the EU under the Everything But Arms scheme the main EPA-induced change will be the requirement to liberalise EU exporters'...

There has been much debate about the possible negative effects of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) for food security in ACP signatories. This paper investigates whether the commitments undertaken by ACP governments when they signed EPAs are a threat to food security. Analysis of the tariff...