Following the 2007 disputed Kenyan Presidential election unprecedented levels of violence erupted across the country adding to the history of troubled elections in Africa.  This paper offers quantitative and qualitative evidence on the incidence, impacts and issues that triggered electoral...

This paper analyses the factors that give rise to the existence of the informal economy and how it evolves over time.  Using an occupational-choice model the paper shows that at early stages of development, informal and formal markets coexist, but in the long-run the size of the informal...

The paper presents a model where individuals decide to become workers or entrepreneurs in the presence of capital constraints and where individuals differ in wealth levels.  The model shows that the higher the initial level of inequality in wealth is, the lower the long run aggregate wealth of...

This paper investigates the factors that shaped Kenyan's voting intentions in the 2007 presidential election.  Using data from a public opinion survey conducted two weeks before the election we are able to evaluate the relative importance of what shaped voting behavior comprehensively, taking...

The Kenyan Constituency Development Fund (CDF) aims to alleviate poverty by allocating resources to constituencies which MPs and residents decide how to spend.  In this paper we assess whether MPs' re-election chances were affected by their management of the CDF.  For this purpose we analyse...

Several new dualistic models have re-examined the causes of the informal economy and have made testable predictions about the long-lasting role of inequality. We test these predictions using historical indicators of inequality, dating back to the 1700s, and data on the informal economy across...

The theoretical literature has predicted that inequality affects long-run growth by reducing human and physical capital, particularly in the presence of imperfect credit markets and other contractual frictions. We test these four mechanisms using measures of inequality at the country-level,...

This paper is the first one to examine empirically whether ethnic, cultural and immigrant population diversity within countries is favourable for entrepreneurship and job creation. Building on existing, yet disjointed theories on diversity, the paper provides insights as to why different types...

This article shows that countries with higher historical levels of income inequality, dating back to the early 1800s, experienced lower rates of growth centuries after in terms of number of firms created, number of employees hired, firms' output, value added and profit margin. To increase the...

This article assesses the extent to which historical levels of inequality affect the creation and survival of businesses over time. To this end, we use the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey across 66 countries over 2005–2011. We complement this survey with data on income inequality...