Valentine’s Day and Development: the Cocoa to Chocolate Story and Africa’s (Mis)Development

Nigeria’s border closure: a road block or a speed bump on the road to a successful AfCFTA?

(with Albert Zeufack) Original blog appeared here: Nigeria’s border closure: a road block or a speed bump on the road to a successful AfCFTA? (with Albert Zeufack). January 23, 2020 In August 2019, Nigeria partially closed its land borders, and since October 2019, it has halted all trade via land borders. This was triggered by Nigerian authorities’ frustration with the smuggling in of rice and illicit exports of locally subsidized petrol to neighboring countries. Let’s zoom in on the rice issue. In 2018, Benin, a country of 11 million people, was the sixth largest importer of rice in the world and…

Is there an optimal FVA share good for growth?

The rise of global value chains (GVCs) is one of the most important developments in international trade in the last few decades. Following this, developing economies ranging from Africa to Asia are actively pursuing policies to position themselves to attach their production activities to GVCs. It is now well established that integrating in the GVCs is critical to their economic growth prospects. However, there is a debate on the nature and extent of this engagement and its implications on export performance growth and the dynamic gains from trade. Often, there is a tendency to associate higher crude GVC participation (fva…

The latest research on firms in Africa: A round-up of the 2018 Annual Bank Conference on Africa

with Markus Godlstein Original Source: The latest research on firms in Africa: A round-up of the 2018 Annual Bank Conference on Africa