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Category: Africa

Published January 16, 2013

Development = Industrialization?

But these indicators only give a partial picture of how well development is going — at least as the term has been understood over the last few centuries. From late 15th century England all the way up to the East Asian Tigers of recent renown, development has generally been taken as a synonym for “industrialization.” Rich countries figured out long ago, if economies are not moving out of dead-end activities that only provide diminishing returns over time (primary agriculture and extractive activities such as mining, logging, and fisheries), and into activities that provide increasing returns over time (manufacturing and services), then you can’t really say they are developing.

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Published December 3, 2012

Managing Basis Risk with Index Insurance in West Africa

Exposure to risk is one of life’s few certitudes. For people who live in developing countries, where underdevelopment almost always extends to financial markets, and where financial instruments to hedge against risk are fewer and further between than in industrialized countries, risk is even more prevalent. The rise of microfinance over the last 20 years has brought about the development of financial instruments designed to protect the poor against some of the risk they face. We first develop an innovative index insurance contract for West African cotton producers, whose harvests are highly variable. The main feature of this contract is that relative to commonly used index insurance contracts, it considerably reduces the basis risk faced by West African cotton producers. We then describe an ongoing evaluation of the impacts of the double-trigger insurance contract in Mali and Burkina Faso.

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Published November 16, 2012

I Think I Work at Hogwarts

I am seriously beginning to think that I work at Hogwarts. Yesterday night was the first of several salons to be organized by the Duke Africa Initiative (DAI).

As per the Chronicle article I linked to, the DAI “serves to consolidate the efforts of Duke professors who have research interests on the African continent.” The DAI was generous enough to give me a small grant to organize a conference on African political economy African political economy on campus in a few weeks.

Last night’s salon was held in the Gothic reading room, at room in Duke’s Perkins library which is exhibit A in support of my claim that I work at Hogwarts:

Duke’s Gothic Reading Room (Source: Duke Libraries.)

And here is exhibit B: Duke researchers are working on an invisibility cloak.

I rest my case.