This paper reviews integration among the eight African Regional Economic Communities by comparing their characteristics and progress with three other South–South Regional Integration Arrangements.  Three conclusions emerge: (i) slow progress towards meeting overly ambitious objectives; (ii) small changes in the destination of trade across all Regional Economic Communities, indicative of persistent high trade costs and […]

This paper contributes to the literature by looking at the possible importance of the structure of the financial system—whether financial intermediation is performed through banks or markets—for macroeconomic volatility, against the backdrop of increased policy attention on strengthening growth resilience. With low income countries (LICs) being the most vulnerable to large and frequent terms of […]

This paper studies how decentralization affects poverty, vulnerability, and inequality in Morocco, in the context of ongoing regionalization reforms. We use different non-parametric approaches to assess spending efficiency of Moroccan municipalities and regions over the period 2005-2009. The results indicate that the efficiency of spending in improving pro-poor outcomes is dependent on the fiscal autonomy […]

The paper examines how the Government of Morocco has addressed the issue of decentralization in recent years and how these processes have evolved and affected fiscal and public policies. More specifically, this paper analyzes the current legislative and institutional provisions governing administrative, political and fiscal decentralization in Morocco and presents a detailed analysis of the […]