Why are African commodity exchanges languishing? A case study of the Zambian Agricultural Commodity Exchange

Food price volatility and high transactions costs remain major problems in African food markets. These persistent problems provide a strong theoretical justification for the development of commodity exchanges. However, the majority of African commodity exchanges remain underdeveloped. Through a case study of the Zambian Agricultural Commodity Exchange (ZAMACE), this article explores why agricultural commodity exchanges in the region have thus far failed to develop into sustainable trading platforms and identifies the most important changes needed to enhance their performance.     

Effects of multimember districts on black representation in state legislatures

We look at the most general feature of multimember districts (MMDs) as compared to single-member districting (SMD) plans: the higher likelihood of submergence of minority voting strength. We focus on data on black legislative representation between 1977 and 1982 in the 11 states with more than 15% black populations, and compare states which use MMDs with those that use SMDs. We also examine changes in black representation in states which shifted from MMDs to SMDs. In addition, for MMD state legislative elections in eight North Carolina counties between 1978 and 1982, we examine in detail the nature of minority submergence including the lack of geographic representativity of the persons elected from MMDs. The counties we examine contain four of North Carolina’s largest cities and a substantial portion of North Carolina’s black population. Unlike almost all of the previously published literature on racial representation in MMDs, our study deals with state legislative races and not local elections.     

Conditions for Optimality of a Currency Area

Two approaches to the theory of OCA are distinguished in this paper. The first, called the marginalistic approach, attempts to define the OCA from the point of view of a single country, and the second examines the optimality of a currency area of a given membership. The marginalistic approach and its limitations are discussed first. Then, the paper proceeds to the second approach which is discussed in the context of the cooperative game theory in characteristic function form; it argues that a currency area is optimal when the welfare functions of its constituent members are in the core. This implies that the welfare functions of all constituent members of the currency area are maximized and hence they are all better off with a common currency rather than with their own national currencies; hence, no member country has the intention to abandon the currency area. The paper concludes that the condition for the optimality of a currency area independently of the degree of economic similarity of its constituents requires that the characteristic function must exhibit non decreasing returns with respect to its size.     

The business and the politics of decolonization: the British experience in the twentieth century

In synthesizing recent studies of the relationships between British businesses and British governments during decolonization, the article takes issue with the ‘gentlemanly capitalism’ paradigm. Imperial business and imperial government did not represent a cohesive elite; private and public agencies were frequently divided on key tenets of decolonization strategy; and, more often than not, it was broader macroeconomic and geostrategic factors rather than the agendas of particular business interests, that informed imperial policy.     

DEMOGRAPHIC EFFECTS ON ECONOMIC GROWTH AND CONSEQUENCES FOR THE PROVISION OF PENSIONS

As the population of an economy ages saving declines and, through that channel, economic growth can decline too. Returns to physical capital fall, making the provision of pensions more and more difficult. The income of the working population deteriorates and they respond by having fewer children. This intensifies the problem even further.     

Supply‐leading versus Demand‐following Hypothesis: Empirical Evidence from Three SSA Countries

Abstract: This study investigates empirically the direction of causality between financial development and economic growth in three sub‐Saharan African countries — Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania. The study seeks to answer one critical question: Does financial development in sub‐Saharan African countries exhibit a supply‐leading or demand‐following response? Using three proxies of financial development against real GDP per capita (a proxy for economic growth), the study finds that the direction of causality between financial development and economic growth is sensitive to the choice of measurement for financial development. In addition, the strength and clarity of the causality evidence is found to vary from country to country and over time. On balance, a demand‐following response is found to be stronger in Kenya and South Africa, whilst in Tanzania a supply‐leading response is found to be dominant. The study therefore recommends that for Kenya and South Africa the real sector of the economy should be developed further in order to sustain the development of the financial sector. However, for Tanzania, there is need for further development of the financial sector in order to make the economy more monetized.