Why is poverty so pervasive in Swaziland despite substantial economic growth achieved through extreme economic openness over several years? Is poverty alleviation in Swaziland a more reachable goal than was in the past, as this country strives to restore rapid economic growth through AGOA facilitating greater insertion into the global…

Poverty reduction policies have become the main guidelines of economic policies in many Sub-Saharan African countries. Therefore the authorities need new social indicators in order to follow the application and the effectiveness of their policies. In recent years renewed efforts have been made to develop new policy tools aimed at…

This paper is an empirical analysis of the demand for Nigeria's non-oil export merchandise with a view to providing an answer to the question of how far the present product mix would go in the global market. The study employed the Johansen's test of co-integration and analysis of structural characteristics…

As part of a wider investigation by the National Institute for Economic Policy, covering a range of economic policy issues, the main aim of this paper is to provide another view of how trade policy has evolved since democracy. We use standard quantities measures of trade policy analysis as an…

This paper makes use of a review of the literature on African labour markets, the international literature on youth and the labour market and a fifteen country African data set to analyze the current situation of youth in sub-Saharan labour markets.

We examine the effect of orphan status on school enrolment in Zimbabwe, a country strongly impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic with a rapidly growing population of orphans. Using data from 2003, after controlling for other determinants of enrolment we find that orphans are less likely to attend school than non-orphans.…

Absences can be as telling as presences, as Sherlock Holmes reminds us. Some times, however, it is difficult to know whether one is really dealing with an absence or not. In the case of South African labour economics some absences have attracted attention: the surprisingly small size of the informal…

The persistence of geographical inequalities is an intriguing puzzle. Many explanations have been offered for why specific geographies flourish while other regions deteriorate.Some have highlighted the impact of natural constraints, like the limited availability of arable land,distance from the sea and the prevalence of disease. Others have stressed the importance…

There is significant consensus that unemployment and more generally, exclusion from the labour market,is the central socio-economic problem in South Africa. Joblessness is strongly implicated in such socio-economic problems as crime, poverty, alcoholism, HIV-AIDS, and even poor educational outcomes and low skill levels (see for example Bhorat etal.2001; Fryer and…

During the nineties Rwandan households faced severe shocks of war and genocide. In addition, the structural problem of land scarcity remains unsolved. How did Rwandan households manage? This is an important question from a development perspective, but also from a security perspective, because uneven development raises the risk of renewed…

The first generation of genetically modified (GM) crop varieties sought to increase farmer profitability through cost reductions or higher yields. The next generation of GM food research is focusing also on breeding for attributes of interest to consumers, beginning with 'golden rice', which has been genetically engineered to contain a…

In September of 2002 South Africa's roughly one million domestic workers - about 840,000 predominantly African and Coloured women who work as housekeepers, cooks and nannies, and another 180,000 men who work primarily as gardeners - were granted formal labor market protection, including the right to a written contract with…

The conventional approach of economists to the measurement of poverty in poor countries is to use measures of income or consumption. This has been challenged by those who favour broader criteria for poverty and its avoidance. These include the fulfilment of 'basic needs', the 'capabilities' to be and to do…

This paper estimates the impact of trade liberalisation on factor returns in South Africa between 1988 and 2002. A particular contribution of the paper is that tariff data are explicitly used in the analysis. In addition, the paper models trade-induced technological change. The paper finds that tariff liberalisation from 1988…

This paper investigates the relationship between foreign aid and population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a panel of African countries over the last four decades, it demonstrates the positive effect of foreign aid on fertility and population growth in this region.

The paper poses six questions about the determinants of subjective well-being in South Africa. Much of the paper is concerned with the role of relative concepts. We find that comparator income - measured as average income of others in the local residential cluster - enters the household - utility function…

This paper examines the performance of public works in addressing both micro and macroeconomic policy objectives relating to growth, employment and poverty reduction in South Africa. Survey data on the micro-economic impact of public worksprogramme participation is used alongside a social accounting matrix (SAM) for the South African economy which…

Uganda is one of the few African countries which has experienced quite substantial growth in the period since 1990. Growth of GDP has been estimated at 6.9% per annum for the period 1990-2002, compared to only 2.6% for all African countries and Ugandas own far weaker performance of 2.9% in…

Capital flight is a serious problem for South Africa, which if not addressed will continue to impede its ability to deal with structural issues such as high unemployment and concentration of wealth. This paper presents an estimate of the wealth that left South Africa in the form of capital flight…

Recent studies using South African household survey data have questioned the exogeneity of household size and composition from income flows and labour market outcomes. (Maitra and Ray, 2001, and Klasen and Woolard, 2000). Research on unemployment in South Africa has occasionally viewed the household as either an important source of…