Browsing by Author "Sarr, Mare"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Aid, infrastructure and growth
    (2011) Mti, Sehlule Nontutuzelo; Sarr, Mare
    In their seminal paper, Burnside and Dollar (2000) introduced the interactive term aid*policy into growth equations. Most studies up until then had merely added aid as a variable on its own with GDP growth as the dependent variable in order to check aid effectiveness.
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    Dictators Walking the Mogadishu Line: How Men Become Monsters and Monsters Become Men
    (2017-06-06) Larcom, Shaun; Sarr, Mare; Willems, Tim
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    Essays on institutional evolution and economic development: evidence from Nigeria
    (2015) Fadiran, David Oluwatosin; Sarr, Mare
    The important role of institutions is relatively agreed on within the growth literature, with most empirical evidence pointing towards a positive influence of institutions on economic growth. However, empirical analysis of the institutions and growth nexus have faced a few problems, which include: the lack of a clear distinction between the different types of institutions; (i.e. political institutions, economic institutions, and customary institutions); a lack of long-run data measuring institutions for most of sub-Saharan Africa; and the paucity of country specific studies - the majority of the empirical evidence have mainly focused on cross-country analysis. While extensions from cross-country analysis to country specific analysis is growing, empirical studies focused on sub-Saharan Africa remain limited. Within the African context, majority of empirical evidence suggest weak institutions as one of the main causes of its poor economic performance. However, due to the paucity of long-run data on institutions, such an hypothesis has not been empirically tested for specific countries. Motivated by these gaps, this thesis contains three essays that examine three types of institutions and their impact on the economy. The specific issues focused on include: the evolution of institutions; persistence of institutions; interdependence between political and economic institutions; interdependence between institutions and economic development; and the role of institutions in determining resource wealth effects. This thesis uses Nigeria as a case study, because of its standing as one of the larger economies in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in terms of its natural resources. In addition to this, Nigeria has experienced numerous regime and constitutional changes over the past few decades which may lead to interesting institutional dynamics.
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    Essays on the economics of foreign aid in Niger
    (2017) Pedrosa Garcia, Jose Antonio; Leiman, Anthony; Sarr, Mare
    This thesis identifies the gaps in the literature on foreign aid, and tries to fill some of them focusing particularly on Niger, a country that has received aid since its independence in 1960, yet remains one of the world's poorest. The work contributes to the literature in three ways: First, it addresses moral hazard: the relationship between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the country is analysed through a historical case study. Niger's requests for assistance are accompanied by promises to undertake reforms; however, once aid is disbursed, these undertakings rarely materialize. Despite this record of poor (and deteriorating) compliance, IMF aid continues to flow, engendering perverse incentives and moral hazard. Secondly, it analyses whether aid is associated with poverty reduction. Aid is correlated with poverty, which is to be expected due to its pro-poor targeting nature. However, this study found increases in poverty associated with communities which were recipients of aid. To shed more light on this, households receiving aid were compared with those receiving no project assistance at all, and with households who benefited from non-aid based development projects. The results showed that changes in poverty levels among aid recipient households were not statistically different to those among households receiving no assistance. However, households benefiting from aid under-performed those who benefited from other projects. Thirdly, it explores whether aid brings utility to households through the provision of public goods. The results suggest that aid projects do help households. However, other sources of development projects are more efficient at doing so. Information is the key: it is a vital prerequisite for projects to address the needs of the population, and not all donors have the same information. Information can be obtained through co-funding projects with other donors, although there are also coordination costs. The models estimated allow the prediction of the benefits a project could provide to a household. Such predictive abilities could allow policymakers to coordinate donors' initiatives to maximize their effectiveness. However, at present Niger lacks the capacity to achieve such coordination. Furthermore, such an approach would involve having to reduce the least efficient donors to mere providers of finance (i.e. channel their resources through other donor types), a role they might not be willing to accept.
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    The execution of corporate social responsibility strategies for "community" benefit: A case study of the South African mining industry and host communities in King Cetshwayo District (KwaZulu-Natal)
    (2017) Mbanjwa, Fani Lucky; Sarr, Mare
    The mining industry in South Africa has been involved in communities for many decades. Mining companies found themselves in the 'spotlight' for the conditions linked to the migrant labour system they adopted. Similarly, it is important to note that mining in South Africa is the major contributor to the GDP and plays an important role in economic growth and community development, given the country's legacy of mineral resources. To deal with the negative perception of mines, the mines responded by trying to mend their tarnished images through engaging in various CSR-linked initiatives, although such initiatives are seen as mere philanthropic acts by the affected communities; in this case, the Dube, Mbonambi, Mkhwanazi and Sokhulu (DMMS) communities in Richards Bay, KwaZulu Natal. Consultation needs to begin before any mine development takes place, not after the mine has begun operating, which is often the case. The persistent problems within the Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) vicinity are viewed by the DMMS communities as those that the company gives salience to without consideration of the communities' needs. Genuine CSR policies must be implemented and be updated according to needs of the surrounding communities, to avoid bias and to be seen to be doing well to the community while in actual fact the programmes are not sustainable. The research which was conducted using a qualitative methodology had a total of 16 respondents taking part. The study was conducted using the interview technique. Some of the key findings included that fact that respondents were unhappy with the numbers of community members who were employed at RBM's mining operations. The community members also felt that the mining company had not invested adequately in community projects. In order to address the challenges the company is facing with the DMMS communities, some of the respondents suggested that job opportunities should be awarded to the communities on a proportional basis depending on the size of the community. The respondents also suggested that more people from the host communities should be given jobs at RBM. Some of the recommendations that have been made in order to address the challenges RBM has been facing with its host communities include conducting a study in order to understand the host community better in order to better structure its CSR projects aimed at benefitting the DMMS communities. The other recommendation is frequent engagements with the community members regarding CSR project plans.
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    Inequality Traps in South Africa: An overview and research agenda
    (Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit, 2015-05-28) Pellicer, Miquel; Ranchhod, Vimal; Sarr, Mare; Wegner, Eva
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    The political economy of oil in Nigeria: How oil's impact on rent distribution has contributed to Nigeria's sub-optimal economic performance
    (2016) Ncala, Thembekile; Sarr, Mare
    Nigeria is an oil-rich country, and one of the largest oil producers in the world, however, its economic and developmental statistics have consistently ranked among the worst in the world. This paradox is widely believed to be a result of the natural resource curse. The natural resource curse is a phenomenon attributed to the inverse relationship between economic growth rates and the natural resource abundance of countries, and several notions have been put forward as to the mechanism through which the curse arises. These notions are generally categorised as either market-based explanations or political economy-based explanations. However, market-based explanations rely on assumptions that often do not apply in developing countries such as Nigeria. Consequently, the literature has come to increasingly focus on political economy explanations, two of the most prominent of which are rent seeking, and domestic conflict and political instability. Therefore, this paper seeks to identify some the drivers of the curse in Nigeria by particularly assessing the influence that rent seeking and domestic conflict and political instability may have had on Nigeria's economic experience. Since much of the resource curse literature is based on quantitative analysis, this paper aims to extend the literature using a qualitative approach, which involves the process tracing of major events in Nigeria. This approach is motivated by the fact that qualitative analysis is better suited to the task of identifying crucial insights concerning underlying dynamics of a specific country. Furthermore, this paper uses the limited access order (LAO) framework to guide its analysis. This framework is useful given that it involves the analysis of rent distribution as a means of curbing violence. Therefore, overall, this paper focuses on deciphering how oil's impact on the nation's economic rent distribution contributes to Nigeria's economic performance. Rent distribution, which largely occurs through patronage and corruption in Nigeria, is analysed through two different dimensions: (i) Formal rent distribution, which is institutionalised, and which mainly involves examining oil influenced changes to the revenue allocation formula and (ii) less formal rent distribution, which primarily involves examining discretionary and covert rent distribution in the oil industry. Based on the analysis, this paper concludes that oil's impact on rent distribution contributes to Nigeria's substandard growth in two ways; directly and indirectly. Regarding the first dimension, the effect is indirect, as oil's impact on formal rent distribution becomes a driver of conflict, which in turn adversely affects the economy's growth performance. However, regarding the second dimension, the effect is more direct, because oil's impact on discretionary rent distribution leads to massive economic waste, which contributes to the suboptimal growth of Nigeria's economy. Overall, with the lack of good institutions that can limit the power of the federal government, and effectively enforce checks and balances in the oil sector, Nigeria's experience of conflict and economic underperformance will remain perpetual in nature.
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    The Transition Mechanism of The Limited Access Order - The Emergence And Evolution of Institutions In Kenya
    (2018) Jobo, Sisamkele; Sarr, Mare
    The purpose of this dissertation was to study the institutional transmission mechanism of the limited-access social order in Kenya. This was motivated by the theory of new institutional economics, which views differences in institutions as fundamental in explaining differences in the level of economic development across countries. However, this theory often faces criticism in as far as it provides weak or no evidence pertaining to the direction of causality between institutions and economic development. This is because the theory tends to neglect the problems of political instability and the process state formation. In the social order framework, the problems of violence and instability underpin state formation and consequently institutional development. The limited access theory suggests that openness to the political and economic spheres of influence at early stages of development serves to increase instability and the level of violence in a society, and this may lead to a deteriorating quality of institutions, hence further economic stagnation. Using the theoretical framework of social orders and public choice theory a Vector Autoregressive Model was applied in order to evaluate this prediction of the limited access order theory. The results indicate that in inheriting colonial institutions and using them to bolster their elite networks through patronage, African leaders invariably inherited the contradictions embodying colonial rule, whereby open access to customary economic rights is disruptive to elite capital accumulation, thereby leading to political instability. Additionally, while the literature on postcolonial African states suggests that colonial institutions have been persistent, the results indicate that postcolonial Kenya has better institutions than colonial Kenya, in terms of economic and political rights. Moreover while the theory mainly attributes violence to elite competition, the findings highlight the importance the increase in political consciousness in the postcolonial state in explaining the evolution of institutions.