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Publications (190)
Book Chapter
From the book:
How States Respond to Crisis
Journal Article
– Examining the role of conventional banks in deepening access to formal credit
Using a unique district-level panel dataset, we investigate the effect of banking system penetration on financial inclusion in Ghana. To purge potential endogeneity bias in the underlying relationship, we exploit a change in the policy environment of the Ghanaian banking system to instrument for...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
COVID-19 and the Informal Economy
Report
pdf
This report documents GHAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ghana. This work was carried out by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana in collaboration with the project partners. The results presented in this report are derived using GHAMOD...
Working Paper
pdf
This study examines the effect of climate on citywide labour productivity in the Accra city region. We use data from Ghana’s Integrated Business and Establishment Survey dataset, climate data at the sub-city level from Ghana Meteorological Agency, and satellite and reanalysis data, as well as key...
Working Paper
pdf
This study examines the effects of mining productivity shocks on the formal–informal duality in manufacturing and services. Using firm census data from 2014 for Ghana, we measure the rates of informality along extensive (unregistered firms) and intensive (registered firms hiring labourers 'off the...
Measuring the effectiveness of local government in Ghana is hampered by incomplete records, but despite that there are still visible patterns, write Daniel Chachu, Michael Danquah, and Rachel M. Gisselquist.Decentralisation, or the transfer of power, responsibilities, and resources from central to...
Working Paper
pdf
– A comparative perspective
We examine the distributional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated tax-benefit measures in seven sub-Saharan African countries, focusing on the onset of the crisis.We evaluate impacts on disposable incomes, considering variations across income groups; assess the effectiveness of tax...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A comparative assessment of data and performance
In this chapter, we conceptualise an ideal framework that captures three reinforcing levers for measuring local government performance in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically Ghana, namely policy pronouncement, political processes and internal operations, and policy implementation. Given data...
Working Paper
pdf
– ACEIR research and the WIID
Work done by the African Centre of Excellence for Inequality Research (ACEIR) has documented the many-faceted nature of inequality in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. Conventionally measured inequality ranges from moderate (in Ghana) to extremely high (in South Africa). Trying to tell one coherent...
Working Paper
pdf
– Ghana case study
Over the years, money-metric measures of inequality such as the Gini coefficient and the Palma Ratio, as frequently used in Ghana, have become useful in providing quantitative measures of welfare distribution that enable a better understanding of the extent and nature of inequality. From these...
Working Paper
pdf
– The sub-Saharan experience
COVID-19 cases were first confirmed in March 2020 in Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. These countries put in place several stringent measures, including lockdowns, to contain the spread of the virus. Various policies were also rolled out to address the disruption in economic activities, to mitigate...
Report
pdf
This report documents GHAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ghana. The report describes the different tax-benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and the database on which the model runs. It concludes with a validation of GHAMOD results...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Ghana
In this study, we provide causal evidence of the immediate and near-term impact of stringent COVID-19 lockdown policies on employment outcomes, using Ghana as a case study. We take advantage of a specific policy setting, in which strict stay-at-home orders were issued and enforced in two spatially...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of Ghana
One essential condition of economic progress in any society is an ample supply of savings, which depends on the growth of real capital.Economists agree that higher investment rates will lead to higher growth. Thus, domestic savings is considered an important determinant of growth in developing...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
From the book:
Tasks, Skills, and Institutions
Working Paper
pdf
We study the effectiveness of social protection benefits in reducing income and consumption poverty in five sub-Saharan African countries—Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia—in normal times and times of widespread economic crisis. Using tax–benefit microsimulation models with...
Working Paper
pdf
This study posits that pandemics should be regarded as complex, open-ended phenomena that cannot be reduced to biology and epidemiology. The research assesses Ghana’s effectiveness in governing the COVID-19 pandemic contrary to apocalyptic predictions. This paper critiques Ghana’s responses to the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
What sustains informality
What are the linkages between national savings and sustainable economic growth? Why are there differences in the amounts of savings between different countries? In March, we introduced our research on Ghana at the UNU-WIDER Domestic savings project workshop. A compilation of the different working...
Working Paper
pdf
Microsimulation approaches to studying shocks and social protection in selected developing economies
This paper calculates automatic stabilization in Ghana, South Africa, and Ecuador to explain income cushioning amid income and demand shocks. Fiscal policies within these countries are also stress tested to gauge welfare contingencies and insurance. A discretionary action approach is adopted for...
Report
pdf
View the latest GHAMOD country report here. This report documents GHAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ghana. The report describes the different tax-benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and the database on which the model runs. It...
Book Chapter
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– An impediment to structural transformation and inclusive growth in Ghana
From the book:
The Developer’s Dilemma
Working Paper
pdf
On the whole, poor countries in Africa and elsewhere seem to have weathered the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2, or COVID-19) pandemic better than wealthier countries with superior healthcare systems. Using the Ghanaian case, this paper draws on newspaper articles, policy statements, and other secondary...
Erica stands under a rudimentary market stall in Accra, Ghana, selling fruits — she has done this every day for 10 years now. Like many women in the Global South, Erica was only able to attend school for a few years before having to leave to work and support her family. Initially she was training to...
Technical Note
pdf
Agricultural subsidies may have significant productive and distributional consequences, and policy-makers need to be able to assess these impacts as a part of the overall tax and benefit policy. Microsimulation models offer a tool for such analysis also in developing countries, but their coverage...
Millions of Africans lost their jobs as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, but state social security systems were of little help to people who lost their income.This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, UNU...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– A micro-level analysis
The financial sector in rural areas, where most of the poor people in sub-Saharan Africa are found, has transformed massively in recent times, notably through the increased penetration of several types of rural financial intermediaries in addition to rural and community banks and microfinance...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Dead end or stepping-stone?
Despite rapid economic growth in recent decades, informality remains a persistent phenomenon in the labor markets of many low- and middle-income countries. A key issue in this regard concerns the extent to which informality itself is a persistent state. Using panel data from Ghana, South Africa...
The first cases of COVID-19 in sub-Saharan Africa were reported in March 2020, and the impact of the pandemic has since rippled through the world and Africa. In response to the crisis and similarly to many of its peers, Ghana has enacted a variety of containment measures to confront the pandemic...
In summer 2020 the SOUTHMOD team set out, with partners, to analyse the impact of government policies on protecting households from getting poorer and avoiding societies from becoming more unequal. Now we are releasing a cross-country comparative study that analyses the distributional effects of the...
Report
pdf
View the latest GHAMOD country report here. This report documents GHAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ghana. The report describes the different tax-benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and the database on which the model runs. It...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper analyses the distributional effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and related tax-benefit measures in 2020 in a cross-country comparative perspective for five African countries: Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia. We first estimate the impact of the crisis on disposable incomes...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
We estimate the efficiency of Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in Ghana, and investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of local public goods and services delivery by MMDAs. Using data from composite budgets of all 216 MMDAs, we employ both non...
Working Paper
pdf
– An exploration based on a multidimensional measure of financial inclusion
Using a nationally representative household survey data set from Ghana, this paper provides empirical evidence regarding the role of financial inclusion or financial exclusion in household welfare. We first compute a multidimensional index of financial inclusion, and then we examine the effect of...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Ghana
Using household data from the latest wave of the Ghana Living Standards Survey, this paper utilizes machine learning techniques – IV LASSO – that allows for the treatment of unconfoundedness in the selection of observables and unobservables to examine the structural effect of gender wage differences...
Technical Note
pdf
This note, with emphasis on VAT and excise taxes, illustrates how indirect taxes are modelled in the context of GHAMOD, a tax-benefit microsimulation model for Ghana. GHAMOD is similar to the EUROMOD base platform, and its built-in Statistics Presenter Tool supports simple analyses of ex-ante policy...
Working Paper
pdf
In this paper, we estimate the efficiency of Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in Ghana, and investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on the efficiency of local public goods and services delivery by MMDAs. Using data from composite budgets of all 216 MMDAs, we employ...
Informal activities are widespread in many developing countries. In many sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries informal economic activities account for more than one-third of economic output and more than two-thirds of employment. Workers engaged in informal activities tend to be less productive and...
Working Paper
pdf
– Examining the role of conventional banks in deepening access to formal credit
Using a unique district-level panel dataset, we investigate the effect of banking system penetration on financial inclusion in Ghana. To purge potential endogeneity bias in the underlying relationship, we exploit a change in the policy environment of the Ghanaian banking system to instrument for...
Working Paper
pdf
– Are there gender differences in Ghana?
Historically, the issue of intergenerational evolution of income, wealth, and socioeconomic status has been the subject of considerable research in the analysis of inequality. Such intergenerational linkages are anticipated to come from two sources: first, the inheritance of innate abilities and...
Background Note
pdf
IntroductionThe literature on the concept, measurement, causes, and correlates of sub-national institutional governance is not new. From the seminal work of Putnam et al. (1993) to recent attempts by Iddawela et al. (2021), several authors have explored untapped spaces that contribute to our...
Blog
– What needs to happen next time
Coronavirus lockdowns brought the world to a standstill. Rules on hygiene and social distancing have reshaped daily life, schools and businesses had been closed, and gatherings banned. Almost 2.7 billion workers, representing around 81% the world’s workforce, have been affected by partial or full...
– Results from the GSPS-COVID panel survey
This survey is a collaborative project conducted by researchers of the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) and the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University of Ghana, Legon. It presents one of the few datasets that...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Ghana
Using household data from the latest wave of the Ghana Living Standards Survey, this paper utilizes machine learning techniques to examine the effect of gender wage differences within households on women’s empowerment and welfare in Ghana. The structural parameters of the post-double selection LASSO...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Ghana
In this paper, we provide causal evidence of the impact of stringent lockdown policies on labour market outcomes at both the extensive and intensive margins, using Ghana as a case study. We take advantage of a specific policy setting, in which strict stay-at-home orders were issued and enforced in...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Ghana
This study provides new evidence on the effect of shortening the duration of pre‐university education on long‐term labour market outcomes in Ghana, exploiting the education reform of 1987 as a natural experiment. Our results indicate that the drastic cut in the duration of pre‐tertiary education...
Working Paper
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We study socioeconomic indicators of female labour force participation in off-farm formal employment in a subsistence agriculture setting in northern Ghana, where a new commercial farm provides a positive demand shock for low-skilled labour. We use a set of quantitative and qualitative data...
Working Paper
pdf
– A comparison across different selection models
The wage of an individual is observed only when he/she is employed. However, getting employment requires two decisions. First, an individual has to decide to participate in the labour market, and second, an employer must decide to hire that individual. Since female labour market participation often...
Working Paper
pdf
We present the first study that examines the effects of ethnic diversity on informal work. Using two waves of data from the Ghana Socioeconomic Panel Survey, we find that ethnic diversity is associated with a higher probability of engaging in informal work. Specifically, our instrumental variable...
Working Paper
pdf
In this paper, we analyse the role of the changing nature of occupational employment and wages in explaining the trend in earnings inequality in Ghana between 2006 and 2017, a period in which there was a substantial transformation of the economy, with workers moving out of agriculture and generally...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from a quasi-experiment in Ghana
This paper provides new evidence on the causal effect of shortening the duration of pre-university education on long-term labour market outcomes in Ghana. We use the education reform of 1987 as a natural experiment, which reduced the years of education prior to university from 17 to 12 years. Our...
View the latest GHAMOD country report here. This report documents GHAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ghana. The report describes the different tax-benefit policies in place, how the microsimulation model picks up these different provisions, and the database on which the model runs. It...
Background Note
pdf
– The case of Ghana
The first two cases of COVID-19 were reported in Ghana on 12 March 2020 by the health ministry. As a first response, on 15 March all public gatherings were banned, all schools and universities were closed, and on 23 March all of the county's borders were closed. In the interest of public safety, a...
Working Paper
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This study examines the structural transformation–inclusive growth nexus for Ghana. The data cover the post-independence period for Ghana and are phased into three periods: the post-independence period to the start of the economic recovery programme (ERP) and structural adjustment programme (SAP)...
From the book:
Mining for Change
Working Paper
pdf
– New evidence from sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa continues to post one of the highest gender gaps in educational outcomes in the world. Gender gaps in educational outcomes might be attributed to an uneven allocation of household resources towards the schooling of boys and girls. In this paper, we interrogate this issue using...
Working Paper
pdf
– A micro-level analysis
The financial sector in rural areas, where most of the poor people in sub-Saharan Africa are found, has transformed massively in recent times, notably through the increased penetration of several types of rural financial intermediaries in addition to rural and community banks and microfinance...
Working Paper
pdf
– Dead end or steppingstone?
Despite rapid economic growth in recent decades, informality remains a persistent phenomenon in the labour markets of many low- and middle-income countries. A key issue in this regard concerns the extent to which informality itself is a persistent state. Using panel data from Ghana, South Africa...
– Poverty and inequality in Ghana
Ghana has recently implemented a policy to support public secondary education. A microsimulation analysis helps reveal the impacts of the reform on poverty and inequality and identifies options to finance it without burdening poor households. A recent policy implemented to support public secondary...
Working Paper
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We examine the extent to which two of Africa’s leading gold mining economies, Ghana and Tanzania, have adopted transformative local procurement policies to enhance backward linkages from the minerals sector. We assess the impact that evolving legislation in the gold industry has had on...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– An analysis of the impact of successive migration on rural household welfare in Ghana
Part of Journal Special Issue
Migration and Those Left Behind
Journal Special Issue
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Building knowledge about migration governance and policy in the Global South is a priority for research and policy. The studies in this special section offer both new empirical insights and new frameworks for analysis, with key policy implications, that can enrich our discussion of these topics...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The Impacts of China's Informal Gold Rush in Ghana
Part of Journal Special Issue
Migration Governance and Policy in the Global South
View the latest GHAMOD country report here. This report documents GHAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ghana. This work was carried out by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) and the University of Tampere in collaboration with the project partners. The results...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from a Behavioral Microsimulation Model for Ghana
Part of Journal Special Issue
SOUTHMOD: Modelling Tax-benefit Systems in Developing Countries
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of the oil and gas industry in Ghana
Local content and local participation policy and legislation have come to stay in Ghana’s oil and gas industry. The policy and legislation have been described largely as adequate, promising, and necessary to promote local content and local participation in the oil and gas industry. Implementation of...
Working Paper
pdf
– A microsimulation analysis on the free Senior High School policy in Ghana
The level of income can be directly inferred from the level of education, making education an important variable as a key determinant of better livelihoods and poverty alleviation. However, in most developing countries education is not accessible to all. In Ghana—although basic education is largely...
The agro-processing industry and its potential for structural transformation of the Ghanaian economy
From the book:
Industries without Smokestacks
Working Paper
pdf
This paper considers the case for universal child allowances in Ghana. It follows findings from an earlier study of 14 middle income countries that examined optimal approaches to reduce child poverty using universal categorical child allowances. The paper describes the demographic profiles that will...
Working Paper
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The research explores the structure and performance of Ghana’s construction subsector, in light of the country’s 2007 oil discovery. Using primary and secondary data resources, we discuss how marginal costs and expenditure shocks may vary within the construction sector for subsectors such as housing...
Working Paper
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Oil resources are neither a curse nor a blessing. The sound management of these resources can make them beneficial or otherwise. In order to translate Ghana’s oil resources into inclusive development amid high expectations, several laws and regulations have been passed and new institutions created...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Understanding the relationship between food access and welfare is critical in the design of social welfare policies, but the literature on this relationship is scarce. Employing the framework by Van Praag (1968) to a household survey data on Ghana, we investigate the monetary income required by...
Blog
– Information asymmetries and other disadvantages of host governments
In the first part of this blog, Alan R. Roe writes about the difficulties governments face in predicting revenues from extractive industries. Read part two here. Countries endowed with rich mineral or oil and gas resources have many competing uses for the revenues that arise from the production of...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from Ghana’s District Assemblies Common Fund
This paper examines the influence of political considerations on intergovernmental fiscal transfers in Ghana. The two-step system GMM approach was used to estimate transfers and elections data for 167 districts from 1994 to 2014. The analysis was country-wide and covers swing districts as well as...
Working Paper
pdf
– Simulating universal pensions in Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa
We use four novel, cross-country comparable tax-benefit microsimulation models for Ecuador, Ghana, Tanzania, and South Africa to evaluate ex ante the expansion of a universal old-age pension in a static setting. Universal pensions would significantly reduce poverty and inequality in settings in...
Working Paper
pdf
– An analysis of the impact of successive migration on rural household welfare in Ghana
The decision to migrate is often influenced by the experience of earlier migrants from one’s household. Earlier migrants provide information on likely opportunities and potential risks and can offer support at destination to later migrants. We explore patterns of migration within rural households...
Working Paper
pdf
This paper examines irregular South-South migration from China to Ghana, and the role it has played in transforming livelihoods and broader developmental landscapes. It looks at the entry from the mid-2000s of approximately 50,000 Chinese migrants into the small-scale gold mining sector. They were...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– The Case of Ghana
To attract greater levels of foreign direct investment into their gold-mining sectors, many mineral-rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been willing to overlook serious instances of mining company non-compliance with environmental standards. These lapses in regulatory oversight and enforcement...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence from a behavioural microsimulation model for Ghana
A large informal sector is a challenge for developing countries building up social protection systems. Expanding social safety nets reduces poverty, but financing them can increase the tax burden, potentially reducing availability of formal sector jobs. This paper quantifies impacts on income...
Working Paper
pdf
– The recent Ghanaian experience
This paper analyses the evolution of fiscal and monetary variables in Ghana, from the discovery of oil in 2007 through to 2014. It documents the deterioration of fiscal and monetary discipline over this period, which resulted in a rebound of debt, a deterioration of the external balance, and a...
View the latest GHAMOD country report here. This report documents GHAMOD, the SOUTHMOD model developed for Ghana. This work was carried out by the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) and the University of Tampere in collaboration with the project partners. The results...
Working Paper
pdf
– Some practical observations from Ghana
At the heart of an effective extractive resource-based economic transformation and development is an effective regulatory framework that guides the promotion of investments into the sector, the procedure for responsible extraction, and the management of the utilization of such resources. Ghana’s...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Macroeconomic Perspectives on Aid
– A tax-benefit microsimulation model for Ghana
Better social protection coverage and greater benefits in developing countries would certainly be welcomed by many. More and better forms of social protection would reduce extreme poverty, build resilience against shocks and even help households to move out of poverty, by making it possible for...
Working Paper
pdf
We examine gender differences in ambitions and expectations of jobseekers concerning self-employment, an increasingly proposed option for youth in economies with limited wage employment. Analysing survey data on 2,036 tertiary graduates in Ghana, we find that males have a stronger preference for...
– How inflated expectations of oil revenues led to a deterioration in macroeconomic management
Prior to the discovery of oil, Ghana was one of the stars of the ‘Africa rising’ story, with an established track record of macroeconomic stability and fiscal discipline. When oil was discovered, there were great hopes that Ghana would avoid the ‘resource curse’. Initial signs were promising — the...
Working Paper
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– Opportunities and obstacles for civil society
Civil society organizations have played various roles in promoting the capture of benefits from and protection against the negative impacts of extractive industries. Payment disclosure is one potentially powerful tool for such organizations to promote greater local benefit capture. Practitioners and...
Working Paper
pdf
– Empirical evidence from northern Ghana
This paper investigates the factors influencing participation in non-farm work and the effect of participation on farmers’ productivity, using survey data from 300 smallholder farm households in northern Ghana. The study employs an endogenous switching regression model to address selection into non...
Working Paper
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– Lessons from Nigeria and Ghana
Donor interest in the extractives sector is based upon the premise that it represents an opportunity to improve a country’s development prospects. However, in many cases the presence of extractive resources is associated with poor economic performance. As a result, some donors are trying a radically...
Working Paper
pdf
The agro-processing industry and its potential for structural transformation of the Ghanaian economy
The paper explores the potential of Ghana’s agro-processing industry in contributing to the development and structural transformation of the economy. Although the industry is not well advanced, a number of factors are discussed which make it a viable sector to lead the economy towards sustainable...
Working Paper
pdf
– Foreign aid, national ownership, and donor alignment in Mali and Ghana
This paper examines the application of the first two principles of the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, namely ownership and alignment, to the cases of Mali and Ghana. It argues that Western donors and recipient governments have adopted the Paris Principles mainly in form, rather than in...
Working Paper
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One key element in the reduction of poverty and (in Latin America) inequality has been the achievement of greater fiscal equity; we analyse one key part of this process, which is the earmarking of portions of tax revenue to be spent on progressive public expenditures such as social protection...
Working Paper
pdf
– The case of Ghana
To attract greater levels of foreign direct investment into their gold mining sectors, many mineral-rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been willing to overlook serious instances of mining company non-compliance with environmental standards. These lapses in regulatory oversight and enforcement...
Over the past two decades, Ghana’s economy experienced an average annual growth rate of 5.8 percent, and became a low-middle income country in 2007. Though Ghana’s average annual employment growth between 1993 and 2013 has been higher than sub-Saharan Africa’s—3.7 percent versus 3.0 percent—its...
Working Paper
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People with disabilities in Ghana and other developing economies are discriminated against in many fundamental elements of human empowerment such as education and employment. While some employers are unwilling to hire, the educational systems do not provide enabling environment for a good education...
Book Chapter
– Poverty Reduction over Thirty Years
From the book:
Growth and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa
Working Paper
pdf
This study assesses temporal and spatial distribution of child deprivation and income poverty using the fifth and sixth rounds of the Ghana Living Standards Survey. The first-order dominance methodology was used to examine five dimensions of deprivation of children aged 7 to 17 years, and the...
Working Paper
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Ghana’s status as one of the African Lions is linked to the country’s remarkable growth performance, which culminated in the attainment of lower middle-income status. However, employment response to growth has been weak. Additionally, growth has been accompanied by substantial reduction in poverty...
Working Paper
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The article explores the various co-ordination mechanisms between the state and the business community in Ghana, and the implications for economic growth in the country. We focus on three periods in the economic history of state–business relations: the immediate postindependence period and the...
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Evidence from Artisanal Marine Fishing in Ghana
Part of Journal Special Issue
Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Economics of climate change impacts on developing countries
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
Part of Journal Special Issue
Aid to Support Fragile States
Working Paper
pdf
– Poverty Reduction Over Thirty Years
Ghana is relatively rare among Sub-Saharan African countries in having had sustained positive growth every year since the mid-1980s. This paper analyses the nature of the growth and then presents an analysis of the evolution of both consumption poverty and non-monetary poverty outcomes over this...
Working Paper
pdf
– An Examination of the Factors Influencing Happiness among the Extreme Poor in Rural Ghana
Every person desires some level of inner fulfilment at different stages of life and this could come from a combination of several factors including material and resource acquisition and social prestige. The challenge, however, is whether happiness levels across the different social strata are the...
Working Paper
pdf
– Evidence From a Developing Country
Understanding the relationship between food insecurity and subjective evaluation of well-being is critical in designing social welfare policies, especially in developing countries. Surprisingly, literature on the topic is scarce. This study adopted Van Praag’s theoretical framework and used...
Working Paper
pdf
A cash transfer programme ‘Livelihood Empowerment against Poverty’ has been implemented with the aim of addressing poverty and vulnerability in Ghana. This study looks at the impact of this conditional cash transfer programme on households’ supply of labour for agriculture, paid employment, and non...
Blog
– Findings and Policy Suggestions
27 May 2014 Wisdom Akpalu The number of fishers and fishing vessels in the capture fishery sector, especially the artisanal marine fishery sub-sector, in Ghana has grown significantly over the past two decades leading to declining catches per trip. In addition to having too many fishers and boats...
Blog
23 April 2014 Wisdom Akpalu joined UNU-WIDER as a Research Fellow based in Ghana in the beginning of 2014. Prior to joining the Institute he was an Associate Professor of Economics at the State University of New York at Farmingdale as well as Chair in the Department of Economics. He is originally...
Working Paper
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This paper chronicles the evolution of industry in Ghana over the post-independence era from an inward over-protected import substitution industrialization strategy of 1960-83 to an outward liberalized strategy during 1984-2000, and since 2001, to the private sector-led accelerated industrial...
Working Paper
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– Further Evidence from Ghana
This paper provides evidence on the nature of returns to education in Ghana and confirms the emerging empirical literature on the convexity of returns to education in Ghana. Using a basic Mincerian, model we find that returns to education more than triples from primary to secondary level or higher–...
Working Paper
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An assessment of the impacts of projected climate change on water availability and crop production in the Volta Basin and the southwestern and coastal basin systems of Ghana has been undertaken as a component of the impacts and adaptation study for Ghana by UNU-WIDER and the University of Ghana...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Ghana
Climate change scenarios for many Sub-Saharan African countries including Ghana indicate that temperatures will increase while rainfall will either increase or decrease. The potential impact of climate change on economic systems is well-known. However, little has been done to assess its economic...
Working Paper
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Climate variability poses a major risk to agricultural incomes in Africa. In Ghana, most of the country’s poor people live in the north and households find it difficult to hold back their productive assets during the lean season. This study investigates the impact of climate variability on household...
Working Paper
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Long-run economic development in Ghana is potentially vulnerable to anthropogenic climate change given the country’s dependence on rainfed agriculture, hydropower, and unpaved rural roads. We use a computable general equilibrium model, informed by detailed sector studies, to estimate the economywide...
Working Paper
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In this paper we discuss aid and the environment in Ghana. Our analysis indicates that expenditure by the government of Ghana has increased consistently since 2000, with seven sectors weakly linked to the environment taking about 78.9 per cent of all government expenditure. Also, the rate of...
Working Paper
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This paper examines the questions of why and how foreign assistance was utilized successfully in South Korea but less so in Ghana, with a focus on the role of aid in the process of state building and state transition in these two countries. Before the 1960s, South Korea and Ghana shared...
Working Paper
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This paper contributes to the debate on aid effectiveness by looking at the ‘how’ of aid effectiveness. In other words it provides an assessment of whether aid only filled a financing gap or whether it, in addition, helped influence the political economy in a way that engendered growth. Ghana...
Blog
24 September 2013 Roger Williamson Another big weekend for UNU-WIDER. The stage was well set on Thursday 19 September for a consideration of inequality and poverty in Africa, at the 17th WIDER Annual Lecture by former Finnish President Ahtisaari on 'Egalitarian Principles–the foundation for stable...
Working Paper
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A recent study of 36 sub-Saharan African countries found a positive impact of aid in the absolute majority of these countries. However, for Tanzania and Ghana, two major aid recipients, aid did not seem to have been equally beneficial. This paper singles out these two countries for a more detailed...
Blog
22 August 2013 Roger Williamson Given the high growth rates since 2000 and low labour costs, Africa could develop manufacturing industry, agro-processing, and services. But these cost advantages can easily be undermined by factors such as inadequate infrastructure, particularly power, transportation...
Blog
9 May 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén The world is a complex place where risk and uncertainty are an everyday challenge. Decision makers at all levels say they are drowning in information; they are longing for clarity and knowledge, rather than conflicting information and opinions. The complexity challenge...
Blog
9 May 2013 Tony Addison With May ending, we head into a very busy June for UNU-WIDER (and midsummer). Next week we are back in Stockholm at Sida for the ReCom results meeting on ‘Aid, climate change, and the environment’. Later this month the Learning to Compete conference—on industrial policy in...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Artisanal Marine Fishing in Ghana
In most coastal developing countries, the artisanal fisheries sector is managed as a common pool resource. As a result, such fisheries are overcapitalized and overfished. In Ghana, in addition to anthropogenic factors, there is evidence of rising coastal temperature and its variance, which could...
Book Chapter
– Lessons from Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius, and South Africa
From the book:
Achieving Development Success
Book Chapter
– The Limits of External Democracy Assistance
From the book:
Democratic Trajectories in Africa
Working Paper
pdf
– the Kin System as a Mechanism of Income-Hiding Between Spouses in Rural Ghana
I present a model of intra-household allocation to show that when income is not perfectly observed by both spouses, hiding of income can occur even when revelation increases bargaining power. I draw data from Ghana and exploit the variation in the degree of asymmetric information between spouses...
Research Brief
In the WIDER Working Paper 'Ghana: The Limits of External Democracy Assistance' E. Gyimah-Boadi and Theo Yakah look at how donor assistance has helped support elections, parliament, political parties, civil society, and the media in Ghana. They argue that while donor assistance has had a positive...
Working Paper
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– The Limits of External Democracy Assistance
Ghana’s experience since the early 1990s indicates that external aid can significantly impact a country’s democratic transition. External democracy assistance has been a crucial, positive factor in Ghana’s steady evolution into an electoral democracy over the past two decades. Continuing gaps in the...
Research Brief
As the country’s oil production shifts into gear, Ghana’s new status as a middle-income country is bound to see a reduction in official development assistance (ODA) in the medium to long term. This emerging oil industry will most likely provide a stimulus for increased net foreign direct investment...
Blog
Robert Darko Osei As the country’s oil production shifts into gear, Ghana’s new status as a middle-income country is bound to see a reduction in official development assistance (ODA) in the medium to long term. This emerging oil industry will most likely provide a stimulus for increased net foreign...
Working Paper
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This study provides an analysis of the aid-private capital flows-growth nexus for Ghana. It is premised on the argument that Ghana’s new status as a middle income country plus the start of oil production is bound to result in a reduction in ODA inflows in the long term. However in the short to...
Book Chapter
From the book:
The Role of Elites in Economic Development
– The Development Record and the Washington Consensus
The Oxford Companion to the Economics of Africa is a definitive and comprehensive account of the key issues and topics affecting Africa's ability to grow and develop. It includes 53 thematic and 48 country perspectives by a veritable who's who of more than 100 leading economic analysts of Africa...
Blog
Tony Addison, Tseday Mekasha, Milla Nyyssölä, Lucy Scott, Finn Tarp, Tuuli Ylinen To meet development objectives, aid recipients and their donor partners need to effectively manage the macroeconomic effects of aid. Aid can improve the economy's supply-side and raise growth. But if the macroeconomic...
Journal Article
Agricultural growth in Africa has accelerated, yet most of this growth has been driven by land expansion. Land expansion potential is reaching its limits, urging governments to shift towards a green revolution type of productivity-led growth. Given the huge public investments required, this paper...
Working Paper
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– Evidence from Ghana’s Microfinance Sector
This paper examines the combined effect of interest rates and poverty levels of microfinance clients on loan size. Cross section data on 2,691 clients and non-clients households from Ghana is used to test the hypothesis of loan price inelasticity. Quantile regression and variants of least squares...
Working Paper
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Community-based development has been criticized for its inadequate understanding of power relationships at the local level, which thus leaves room for elite capture. This paper compares and contrasts two case studies, both of which take power seriously in their institutional designs. The solar home...
Working Paper
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– Lessons from Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius and South Africa
Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius and South Africa are sub-Saharan African countries that stand out for their development progress. Each of these countries has succeeded against the odds, against expectations. This paper synthesizes the common ingredients of these countries’ success, and derives lessons...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Foreign Aid for Development
Journal Article
This peer-reviewed research is available free of charge. UNU-WIDER believes that research is a global public good and supports Open Access.
– Policy Lessons from Recent Experience
Part of Journal Special Issue
Development Aid
Blog
Alice Amsden, Alisa DiCaprio, and James Robinson To understand what role elites play in the process of economic development, we need to establish first who they are. Though most definitions are welfare neutral, in popular discourse elites take on a negative connotation. This conceptual confusion has...
Working Paper
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– The Ghana Case
The current paper, first, documents Ghana’s ‘success’ story. Second, it identifies the strategy employed. Third, it provides a brief history of why and how the strategy was adopted. Fourth, it provides some rationale for the success of the strategy, including the roles of domestic and international...
Working Paper
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– Policy Lessons from Recent Experience
This paper investigates the macroeconomic challenges created by a surge in aid inflows. It develops an analytical framework for examining possible policy responses to increased aid, in terms of absorption and spending of aid—where the central bank controls absorption through monetary policy and the...
Journal Article
Part of Journal Special Issue
Globalization-Poverty Channels and Case Studies from Sub-Saharan Africa
Book Chapter
– A Risk-Cost Configuration Approach
From the book:
Domestic Resource Mobilization and Financial Development
Book Chapter
– Using an Index of Consumer Durables to Investigate Wealth Accumulation by Households in Ghana
From the book:
Personal Wealth from a Global Perspective
Working Paper
pdf
This paper investigates the factors that influence market participation in rural economies. This is based on the premise that participation in the market is an important channel through which the global economy impacts on the rural areas and can have a positive impact on poverty reduction through...
Working Paper
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This paper argues that the reduction of horizontal inequalities (HIs) or inequalities between culturally defined groups should inform aid policy in heterogeneous countries with severe HIs. It shows how this would change aid allocation across countries, leading to more aid to heterogeneous countries...
Book Chapter
From the book:
Food Security
Working Paper
pdf
– Using an index of consumer durables to investigate wealth accumulation by households in Ghana
The study uses an asset index of consumer durables to track changes in household wealth in Ghana during the recent period of strong growth. Using the Ghana Living Standards Survey of 1998 that contains both wealth data and consumer durable data, the authors demonstrate that the asset index...
Working Paper
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– A Risk-Cost Configuration Approach
The paper examines the source of financial market fragmentation in sub-Saharan Africa in the framework of institutional economics. Based on fieldwork data from Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, and Tanzania, it analyses financial risk management, the transaction costs for loan screening and monitoring, and...
Working Paper
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– Ghana, Vietnam and Peru
The extent to which commodity price volatility affects the income of producing households and their vulnerability to poverty and food insecurity depends on household diversification patterns and the degree of their exposure to markets. This article focuses on estimating agricultural income...
Working Paper
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The paper primarily investigates the interrelationship between financial sector development and poverty reduction in Ghana. This is done using time-series data from the World Development Indicators from 1970-2001. The main findings are, first, that even though financial sector development does not...
Working Paper
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Ghana’s tax reforms constitute the major policy instrument needed to accelerate growth and poverty reduction. Over the past two decades, the government has consistently spent more revenue than it is able to generate and the gap is often financed with foreign aid which has perpetuated the country’s...
Journal Article
– Tied Aid Versus Direct Budgetary Support
Part of Journal Special Issue
Aid to Africa
Journal Article
Part of Journal Special Issue
Aid to Africa
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) give aid to Africa a new emphasis. Yet aid flows to Africa have trended downward over the last decade, and as a consequence more Africans now live in poverty. This is especially true of Sub-Saharan Africa. Any progress towards the main MDG target of halving...
Working Paper
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An important feature of aid to developing countries is that it is given to the government. As a result, aid should be expected to affect fiscal behaviour, although theory and existing evidence is ambiguous regarding the nature of these effects. This paper applies techniques developed in the...
Working Paper
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– Tied Aid Versus Direct Budgetary Support
There has been significant amount of aid inflows to developing countries including Ghana, but these have been very volatile. Aid flows have been associated with low domestic resource mobilization and have reduced Ghana to a country heavily dependent on aid. The amount of official development...
Book Chapter
– Inclusion and Exclusion in Mutual Insurance Networks in Southern Ghana
From the book:
Insurance Against Poverty
Book Chapter
– A Comparative Study of Ghana and Tanzania
From the book:
Reforming Africa's Institutions
Working Paper
pdf
– Inclusion and Exclusion in Mutual Insurance Networks in Southern Ghana
Mutual insurance has been shown, theoretically and empirically, to be incomplete and limited by asymmetric information and lack of enforcement mechanisms. While some research has shown that networks based on kinship, neighbourhood and ethnicity may provide a locus of insurance and thus a way of...
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