| 1. |
- Bigsten, Arne, 1947, et al.
(författare)
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The Changing Structure of Swedish Foreign Aid
- 2016
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The study investigates how the composition and character of aid of Swedish aid has changed over time, and what effects these changes have had for the potential to realize key aspects of the Paris agenda such as ownership, alignment, harmonisation, and accountability and the ability to deliver aid efficiently. We analyse the changes in Swedish aid flows since 1990 and compare with changes in the global pattern in terms of purpose, country allocation, channels, and modalities. We discuss how these changes are likely to have affected the efficiency of Sweden as a donor. We conclude with a discussion about the future direction of Swedish aid.
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| 2. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977, et al.
(författare)
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Gold mining and education: a long-run resource curse in Africa?
- 2016
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- We provide micro-level evidence on an important channel through which mineral resources may adversely affect development in the long-run: lower educational attainment. Combining Afrobarometer survey data with geocoded data on the discovery and shutdown dates of of gold mines, we show that respondents who had a gold mine within their district when they were in adolescence have significantly lower educational attainment. These results are robust to the omission of individual countries, different definitions of adulthood, the use of alternative data from the Development and Health Surveys (DHS), and buffer-based approaches to define neighborhood. Regarding mechanisms, we conclude that the educational costs of mines are likely due to households making myopic educational decisions when employment in gold mining is an alternative. We explore and rule out competing mechanism such as endogenous migration, a lower provision of public goods by the government, and a higher propensity for violent conflicts in gold mining districts.
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| 3. |
- Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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Fiscal Capacity and Government Accountability in Sub-Saharan Africa
- 2011
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Historical evidence from the developed world suggests that the expansion of the mod- ern states’ fiscal capacity (i. e. its ability to tax citizens) eventually led to more democratic and less corrupt governments. Since sub-Saharan African countries are currently in a pro- cess of state building, we study whether a positive effect of fiscal capacity on government accountability prevails in contemporaneous sub-Saharan Africa, too. We conduct the em- pirical analysis with data covering 23 African countries over the 1960-2008 period. The results suggest that fiscal capacity increases government accountability in sub-Saharan Africa.
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| 4. |
- Bigsten, Arne, 1947
(författare)
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Aid and Economic Development in Africa
- 2006
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The question discussed in this in this paper is whether foreign aid can help accelerate growth in African countries. The paper reviews growth determinants and growth constraints in Africa and discusses how aid can help relieve the constraints. Issues covered are the choice of aid modalities, donor coordination, conditionality, and international integration. A key question addressed is how aid should be organised not to overburden the recipient system and to provide incentives for policy makers to perform. The paper also touches upon the need for international trade reforms and public goods investments.
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| 5. |
- Bigsten, Arne, 1947, et al.
(författare)
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Can Africa Reduce Poverty by Half by 2015? The Case for a Pro-Poor Growth Strategy
- 2005
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study uses simulations to explore the possibility of halving the percentage of people living in extreme poverty in Africa by 2015. A pro-poor growth-scenario and a constant-inequality scenario are compared. It is shown that initial levels of inequality and mean per capita income determine the cumulative growth and inequalityreduction required to achieve the target. The trade-off between growth and inequality varies greatly among countries and their policy-choices are thus quite different. In some cases small changes in income-distribution can have a large effect on poverty, while in others a strong focus on growth is the only viable option.
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| 6. |
- Bigsten, Arne, 1947
(författare)
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Can Aid Generate Growth in Africa?
- 1998
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The paper discusses the impact of foreign aid on economic growth in Africa. After brief discussion about growth determinants it goes on to review the available evidence about the impact of aid on African economic growth. Evidence from both cross-country regressions and country studies is considered, and issues relating to economic policy, governance, ownership, and sustainability are identified as particularly important. Given those insights, some general conclusions are drawn as to what type of aid should be given. However, the main focus is on a discussion about how to structure the aid relationship so that it encourages good governance, which is deemed essential for long-term growth. Donors should delegate more responsibility to the recipients, while at the same time creating an incentive structure for good performance. This would include among other things a shift towards ex post conditionality and aid allocation according to performance. Given the improvements in the economic policy environment in Africa, the prospects for effective aid look more promising than they have for a long time.
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| 7. |
- Bigsten, Arne, 1947
(författare)
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Can Japan Make a Comeback?
- 2004
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Since the beginning of the 1990s Japan has experienced economic stagnation. This paper discusses its causes and the prospects for recovery. It considers both the macroeconomic problems and the viability of the Japanese economic model itself. The potential roles of fiscal, monetary, exchange rate, and structural policies are discussed.
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| 8. |
- Bigsten, Arne, 1947
(författare)
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Donor coordination and the uses of aid
- 2006
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The paper discusses donor coordination and its implications for the uses of aid. The paper starts by specifying a simple framework for the discussion, and then reviews the theoretical literature. It then provides some data on donor proliferation and discusses how coordination modalities have evolved over time, in particular during the current phase with partnership and ownership. The following sections summarize the limited empirical evidence available on the impact of coordination on transaction costs and public-sector management and governance. A key issue with regard to the latter is how donor coordination affects the incentives of the recipient government. The paper concludes with a review of the policy debate and some policy conclusions.
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| 9. |
- Bigsten, Arne, 1947, et al.
(författare)
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Efficiency, Technical Progress, and Best Practice in Chinese State Enterprises (1980-1994)
- 2000
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In spite of rapid economic growth and swift structural change during the last two decades, China's industrial reform is far from complete, especially with regard to state enterprises (SOEs). Although troubled with huge financial losses, heavy debt, and substantial over-staffing, SOEs will continue to play a crucial part in the government policy to maintain social stability and economic growth in China. This study, based on samples of about 700 state enterprises during 1980-94, investigates productivity performance of the SOEs using Data Envelopment Analysis and Malmquist Index. Our empirical results show that average technical efficiency had been low among the sample SOEs. Considerable productivity growth was found, but it was mainly accomplished through technical progress rather than efficiency improvement. Regression analyses indicate that wage incentives and education had positive impacts on productivity growth, while large scale was an important determinant of whether an SOE was applying best practice technology. It is also shown that large SOEs were more likely to generate technical progress. These findings are consistent with the industrial structural adjustment program initiated by the government in 1994, which has focused on improving productive efficiency via redundancies and technology upgrading, and on building its best SOEs into conglomerates
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| 10. |
- Bigsten, Arne, 1947, et al.
(författare)
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Firm Productivity and Exports: Evidence from Ethiopian manufacturing
- 2008
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper examines the causal relationship between exporting and productivity using a ten years long plant-level panel data set from an annual census of Ethiopian manufacturing, rarely available in the sub-Saharan Africa. We exploited its length to trace the trajectory of TFP and other productivity measures of groups of firms classified by their export history. We then tested learning-by-exporting using a one-step system-GMM approach with the export-status included directly in the production function. We addressed potential endogeneity problems by using instrumental variables, and also applied a matching analysis to address potential selection bias. We found strong evidence of not only self-selection but also learning-by-exporting. Depending on the specification previous exporting appears to have shifted the production function by 15-32 %. Exporters had on average three times more employees, and paid 1.6 times higher average wage than those of non-exporters.
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