African Economic Development
Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (CST)
- Chair: Gbadebo Odularu, Howard University
Investigating the Effect of Climate Change on Agricultural Productivity and Food Inflation in Ghana
Abstract
Recent incidences of flooding, droughts, erratic changes in rainfall patterns, rising temperatures, and low humidity levels as a result of climate change have a potential impact on agricultural performance. The study investigates the impact of climate change on agricultural performance in Ghana using time series from 1970 to 2022. Using data from the Ghana Statistical Service and World Bank Indicators and applying the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model (ARDL), the study found a significant negative impact of climate change (proxied by carbon emissions, precipitation, and changes in temperature) on overall agricultural performance and cereal production in Ghana. We also found that temperature increases food inflation, however, food inflation reduces with precipitation up to some optimum level of precipitation and begins to increase. The study concludes that climate change affects Ghana’s agricultural performance negatively, hence governments, stakeholders, and farmers should take pragmatic steps in addressing the issue of climate change in the country.The People's Voice and Access to Sanitation
Abstract
This paper uses data from 73 developing countries aver a twenty-year period and a new instrument-free estimator, the kinky least squares (KLS) estimator to investigate the causal of voice and accountability, which broadly captures transparent electoral processes, free media, and freedom of expression, on access to and use of sanitation. Developing and estimating a simple supply and demand model, we fond that voice and accountability has a statistically and economically significant impact on access to and use of sanitation services in developing countries. The effects are similar for national, real, and urban areas with the effects much stronger for rural areas. We also find that increased voice and accountability decreases the urban-rural urban gap in access to sanitation. The results are robust to specification and estimation methods. Our results highlight the importance of institutions in providing public services in particular and in the development process generally. The results are consistent with the results of previous research on the relationship between voice and accountability on the one hand and sanitation access on the other.Trade and Women’s Wage Employment in Africa: Does Infrastructure Matter?
Abstract
We use country-level data from 35 African countries for the period 1995-2019 and explore the role of infrastructure (electricity and ICT) in moderating the impacts of trade openness on women’s wage employment. Fixed-effects and Arellano-Bond GMM estimates suggest that access to electricity has non-linear (U-shape) effects on women’s wage employment while mobile phone and internet used have positive linear effects. On the other hand, while trade has a significant positive association with women’s wage employment in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), we fail to find evidence of trade causing female wage employment. Interestingly, we find negative linear effects from the interplay of ICT with trade and a significant non-linear (inverted-U) effect from the interplay of electricity and trade. These results underscore the importance of the role of trade and infrastructure for women’s employment in in the formal sector and highlight the need for targeted policy actions.Dances with Wolves: Weather and Health Disasters and Fiscal Sustainability in Africa
Abstract
Fiscal sustainability is a major source of concern in light of the successive weather and health disasters. We estimate the contemporaneous and long-run effects of weather vis-à-vis health disasters on the fiscal sustainability of North African economies during 1990-2022 using two-way fixed-effects and two-step system general method of moments strategies. We also examine if domestic resource mobilization and external financing act as fiscal stabilizers that mitigate disaster effects. We find that weather disasters reduce the budget and overall fiscal balances by 2.1% and 2.2% instantaneously and by 5.4% and 6.2% after one year, respectively. Health disasters reduce the budget and overall fiscal balances by, respectively, 0.4% and 0.3% instantaneously, with no long-run effects observed. Our estimates indicate that government debt can help mitigate all types of disasters. Domestic resources from sovereign wealth funds and business taxation are more effective in mitigating weather disasters' effects than external sources of finance. Countries with higher foreign reserves and net savings are better able to fiscally endure health disasters. This study emphasizes the significance of domestic resource mobilization vis-à-vis external sources of finance in times of disasters.Discussant(s)
Fafanyo Asiseh
,
North Carolina A&T State University
Mina Baliamoune-Lutz
,
University of North Florida
Patrick Mason
,
University of Massachusetts-Amherst
Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong
,
National Science Foundation
Eric Ayamga
,
Texas Tech University
JEL Classifications
- O1 - Economic Development