Human Capital, Governance and Poverty Reduction: A Panel Data Analysis

Governance, Growth and Poverty Reduction

Poverty reduction is a function of economic growth, income distribution and distribution changes. Governance can impact both growth and income distribution. The dominant market-enhancing governance paradigm seeks to enhance the efficiency of markets through ‘good governance’ reforms, ostensibly to trigger or sustain growth. ‘Pro-poor’ good governance reforms purport to enhance the scale and eff...

Trade Reforms, Human Capital and Poverty: A Pseudo-Panel Analysis for Ghana

In this paper, we present one of the first direct microeconometric studies of the impact of trade protection on household income in Ghana. Tariff measures at the two-digit ISIC level are matched to Ghanaian household survey data for 1991/92 and 1998/99 to represent the tariff for the industry in which the household head is employed. We examine the possibility that the effect of protection on in...

Agriculture Trade Openness and Poverty Reduction: A Cross-Country Analysis

This paper explores the effects of general and agricultural trade openness on economic freedom and alongside with the quality of institutions, on income and poverty. Recent cross-country data for over 200 nations in global regions were used to estimate equations for income, poverty and economic freedom. Economic freedom appears to have positive impacts on income levels, which together with good...

Governance and poverty reduction in Africa.

A careful review of the literature in political science and neighboring social science disciplines shows that prevailing assumptions in the international development policy community about improved governance as a principal mechanism to reduce poverty in Africa rests more on faith than science. Conventional policy models for tackling poverty fail to take into account the peculiar socioeconomic ...

Local Governance for Poverty Reduction in Africa