Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Multidisciplinary Conference On The Challenges & Opportunities For Sustainable Development In Ethiopia & The Greater Horn Of Africa

International Conference on African Development Archives

No abstract provided.

Necessity Vs. Opportunity Entrepreneurs In The Informal Sector (Short Note), Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

Some informal businesses are started to take advantage of business opportunities (opportunity firms) while others are started because the owner cannot find a satisfactory job (necessity firms). Comparing opportunity vs. necessity informal firms, this note finds that opportunity firms are more efficient and larger. They are also more likely to use external finance, and suffer less from infrastructure bottlenecks such as power outages. The key point in all these differences is that they apply to the manufacturing sector alone. With the exception of having more educated managers and more businesses located outside than inside household premises, opportunity firms in the …

How Different Are Service And Manufacturing Firms In The Informal Sector? (Short Note), Mohammad Amin

Mohammad Amin

A comparison of service and manufacturing firms in the informal sector shows that service firms are larger in terms of total sales and also generate more output per worker. They rely less on physical infrastructure and machines but more on human capital. Service firms also appear to be better integrated with the financial system with access to finance being less of an obstacle to their business. Some of the commonly held reasons for not registering such as taxes that registered businesses have to pay and benefits from registering such as better access to government programs appear to be less important …

Complexity, Cofactors, And The Failure Of Aids Policy In Africa, Eileen Stillwaggon

Economics Faculty Publications

Global AIDS policy still treats HIV as an exceptional case, abstracting from the context in which infection occurs. Policy is based on a simplistic theory of HIV causation, and evaluated using outdated tools of health economics. Recent calls for a health systems strategy – preventing and treating HIV within a programme of comprehensive health care – have not yet influenced the silo approach of AIDS policy.

Evidence continues to accumulate, showing that multiple factors, such as malnutrition, malaria and helminthes, increase the risk of sexual and vertical transmission of HIV. Moreover, complementary interventions that reduce viral load, improve immune response, …

Determination Of Interest Rate Saharan African Countries: A Analysis., A. O. Folawewo, E. A. Udeaja

Economic and Financial Review

A major indicator of banking sector efficiency is interest rate spreads (IRS), which have been found to be very high in African countries. This paper analysed the determinants of interest rate spreads in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) from a macro perspective, that is, using aggregate banking sector data, and focusing macroeconomic and market determinants. The study used ex-ante measure of spreads, that is, differences between interest rates on lending and deposit. Using annual data covering 33 countries, the result to obtained from the paper suggested that different market and macroeconomic policy variables played significant role in explaining variation in IRS in …

Foreign Debt And Domestic Savings In Developing Countries, Luke Okafor, Joanna Tyrowicz

Joanna Tyrowicz

This paper approaches the question of potential causality between foreign debt and domestic savings in the context of developing countries. Literature provides evidence in as far as foreign debt and development is concerned, but little attention was given so far to internal potential for capital formation. We provide a theoretical framework and test its relevance using 1975-2004 data for two groups of countries: sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America with the Caribbean. With the use of instrumental variables we find negative impact of foreign debt on domestic savings especially in the long run. The results are not susceptible to the choice …

Eu-Acp Economic Partnership Agreements, Inma Martinez-Zarzoso, Sebastian Vollmer, Nils Klann, Felicitas Nowak-Lehmann D.

Inma Martinez-Zarzoso

We estimate the welfare effects of the Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and nine African countries. Our analysis is based on highly disaggregated data for trade and tariffs. We extend the literature in two principal ways: First, we estimate bilateral elasticities of import demand from the disaggregated data. Second, in place of simulating rather general scenarios we apply the recently negotiated tariff reduction rates to estimate the agreement’s welfare effects. Results indicate that Botswana, Cameroon, Mozambique, and Namibia will profit from the interim agreements, while the effects for Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda are close to zero.