Publications

Ever since the creation of the WTO, attempts at bringing together the trade and climate regime have failed. This paper reviews attempts at reducing tariffs on products classified as Environmental Goods (EGs), causes of failure in past attempts, and suggests requirements for a meaningful agenda in…

This paper proposes a new methodology for evaluating off-grid electrification projects, based upon Nighttime Light (NTL) observations, obtained by a combination of Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) data and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) data. The methodology cons…

La FERDI a mis au point une initiative originale pour évaluer l’impact et identifier les bonnes pratiques des projets d’accès aux services essentiels, en s’appuyant sur l’exemple des projets d’électrification décentralisée. Un grand nombre de résultats de travaux d’évaluation de tels projets a ét…

Les États ont investi de manière croissante ces dernières années dans le secteur de l’eau, de l’assainissement et de l’énergie sur le continent africain. Néanmoins, l’étendue des infrastructures se situe encore bien en dessous de la moyenne mondiale, et la croissance démographique sur le continen…

Using a propensity score matching methodology, we study the causal effect of mobile money services adoption on intra-African goods trade. We find that countries that adopted MM register a higher goods trade share in GDP of about 0.6 percent in comparison to non-adopters.

Multiple initiatives across sub-Saharan Africa are currently leveraging digital technologies to provide transformative solutions to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as well as consumers across the region. This paper presents a deeper dive on several promising key players currently push…

We estimate the tax burden on the mobile telecommunication sector in twenty-five African countries. This tax burden encompasses not only standard and particular taxes under the control of the Ministry of Finance (MoF), but also fees raised by national telecommunication Regulatory Agency (RA). Giv…

The purpose of this paper is to assess the importance of external shocks relative to internal characteristics in explaining variation of firm growth in developing countries. To do so, we compile firm-level panel data covering 12,562 firms operating in 72 low-income and middle-income countries. Ou…

In a span of fifty years, Mauritius has reached high-income status according to the World Bank criterion. Key to this success was the combination of: (i) effective policies; (ii) resilience to shocks; (iii) adaptation to changing external events cemented by close collaboration between Government,…