African Development Review-Revue Africaine De Developpement最新文献

This study investigates the effects of economic opportunities created by structural transformation, such as income from labor employment and income from nonlabor sources, on the incidence, depth, and severity of rural poverty using the 2018/2019 Ethiopian Socioeconomic Survey data. The effects of rural transformations in terms of nonfarm self-employment and improved farming systems on poverty are also investigated. Ordinary least square, Probit, Instrumental Variable Probit model, and two stage least square estimation methods are used depending on the nature of outcome variables and the Wald test of exogeneity. The findings show that labor income (especially regular salaried income) and nonlabor income (especially remittance from international sources) are crucial in reducing the incidence of rural poverty. Improvements in crop and livestock practices, on the other hand, reduce the incidence as well as depth and severity of rural poverty. The findings suggest that more attention should be given to enhancing the modernization of crop and livestock sectors by expanding access to farm credit and improved extension systems, among other things.

This study employs a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model, integrated with a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) epidemiological framework, to assess the macroeconomic impacts of fiscal policy during the COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco. Calibrated with Moroccan COVID-19 data, the model links epidemiological dynamics to macroeconomic variables, offering a detailed analysis of fiscal interventions. The primary objective is to evaluate the effectiveness of various fiscal measures, including government spending shocks, consumption tax cuts, and labor tax reductions, in stimulating economic activity and supporting households and businesses impacted by the pandemic. The results indicate that government spending shocks significantly stimulated economic activity and employment, but also led to increased public debt and inflationary pressures, thereby illustrating the inherent trade-offs. Consumption tax cuts, intended to boost demand, had mixed effects on inflation; while prices for some goods declined, higher demand caused price increases in others. Labor tax reductions, aimed at enhancing employment, generated varied effects on labor supply and contributed to rising public debt due to lower tax revenues. The study underscores the necessity of balanced fiscal strategies to achieve both immediate economic recovery and long-term fiscal sustainability, highlighting the critical role of well-calibrated fiscal policies in mitigating the economic consequences of pandemics.

We study the effects of fiscal decentralization on people's access to health and education services in Cameroon. It is generally believed that fiscal decentralization is an essential way to improve people's access to social services such as education and health. After reviewing the literature, we employed the Driscoll and Kraay estimate in a sample of 45 rural and urban municipalities for the period 2010–2020 to find our results. The results show that fiscal decentralization has a positive effect on the number of classrooms per pupil and the number of desks per pupil. At the same time, it negatively affects public hospitals per capita and the state of public hospitals. To improve people's access to education and health services in Cameroon, it is necessary to encourage the transfer of powers to municipalities. There is a need to control the actions of local officials to avoid mismanagement of resources that will not benefit the population. Also, the responsibility for selecting communal projects financed via the public investment budget within the framework of decentralization should be exclusively that of municipal executives, and not that of the central government.

The effect of remittances on the labor supply decisions of recipients remains a subject of contention. To contribute to the debate, we investigate how the educational attainment and household income of remittance recipients shape their decisions to work. Using data from the 2018–2019 living standard measurement survey for over 61,000 Nigerians and applying the instrumental variable probit and Tobit techniques, we find that remittances are associated with an occupational switch from agriculture to nonagricultural (paid jobs and nonfarm enterprises) works. Specifically, the results show that remittance recipients are more likely to exit or reduce the hours worked on the farm, regardless of educational attainment and household income status. On the other hand, remittances promote labor supply to paid jobs and nonfarm enterprises, especially among the less educated in Northern Nigeria. In terms of household income, the positive effect of remittances on nonfarm jobs only holds for individuals in the top income quartile, regardless of their region of residence. Our findings are robust to alternative estimation techniques and hold important cues for policymakers.

We analyse the effect of education on gender parity in wage employment in sub-Saharan African countries. The data used cover a panel of 43 countries over the period 2000–2019. The two-stage least squares method is used. The results show that secondary and tertiary education and gender parity in education improve gender equality in wage employment. Therefore, to reduce gender inequality in wage employment, African countries should promote gender equality, particularly in secondary and tertiary education, by adopting policies to alleviate the conditions and costs of schooling for girls.

In the context of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), characterized by abundant natural resources and persistent challenges in economic growth, this paper explores the effect of economic complexity (EC) on natural resource depletion (NRD) from 1997 to 2017. To this end, the study employs data mainly from the World Development Indicators on 36 SSA countries. Using both the pooled ordinary least squares and the two-step system generalized method of moments estimation techniques, the results indicate that EC significantly contributes to reducing the exhaustion of natural resources in SSA during the study period. The findings equally suggest that government expenditure on education, as well as gross domestic product per capita, exert a reducing effect on NRD, while energy use, foreign direct investment, and urbanization are vectors of resource exhaustion in the region. The results remain consistent when an alternative measure of EC is applied as well as when different estimation strategies are used. This offers scope for a reminder for proper management policies to be edited and applied regarding these mostly nonrenewable resources.

Empirical evidence on the benefits of international ownership for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) financial performance is either not available for most African and Middle Eastern countries or presents mixed results. In this paper, we investigate this further by examining the effects of ownership structure on firm performance, using financial data covering SMEs in 60 African and Middle Eastern countries, for the years 2006–2015. Results from pooled ordinary least squares and random-effects estimations indicate that international ownership is significantly positively correlated with firm performance for (most of) Africa and the Middle East. Examining the interaction of international ownership with capital resources, we find that internationally owned firms do not use capital more efficiently than locally owned firms, implying that internationally owned firms use international resources—other than capital—more efficiently.