We estimate the additional investment required to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a focus on SDG 1 on ending extreme poverty by 2030 as well as alternative scenarios of reducing poverty. Ending poverty will be an insurmountable task. Africa requires a double-digit growth rate of 16.6 per cent per year between 2015 and 2030 to end extreme poverty by 2030, which corresponds to an investment-to-GDP ratio and a financing gap to GDP ratio of 87.5 and 65.6 per cent per annum, respectively. However, the estimates on the required growth rates vary widely across sub-regions and levels of development of individual countries. Countries and sub-regions with low initial poverty levels and higher responsiveness of poverty to income will be able to end poverty with lower growth rates and lower development finance. The paper outlines the potential policy implications of our findings.
This paper investigates the role of economic transformation in the form of increased manufacturing share in aggregate output in accelerating growth and reducing growth volatility in Africa. Using cross-section time series data from 50 African countries, the paper examines the key determinants of growth in the share of manufacturing output in aggregate output and its relationship with real GDP growth and growth volatility. Results of system GMM estimation indicate that real GDP growth and domestic investment are among the key drivers of growth in the share of manufacturing output in total output and that growth in the latter has, in turn, the potential to raise GDP growth and reduce growth volatility. It is therefore argued that African countries should pursue effective strategies, including industrial policies and institutional reforms, to promote manufacturing and other innovative activities as a means to accelerate economic growth and diversification, and enhance employment creation.
This study attempts to investigate the effects of cultural origin on the saving behaviour of immigrants in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Using household survey data covering 3206 households, savings rates are found to be remarkably different across households from different countries/regions. Immigrants from developing countries appear to be uniform in terms of average household size, age, education and occupation. However, immigrants from Pakistan and India are found to have higher average savings rates than those from Arab countries, although they have relatively lower incomes. This suggests strong cultural effects on savings, a proposition that is generally supported by the econometric findings of this research.
The prohibition of interest‐bearing credit and its replacement with a profit and loss sharing (PLS) system that accords with Islamic injunctions has been associated with remarkable increases in formal lending to agriculture. A model is used to show that the PLS mechanisms may reduce adverse selection and moral hazard effects as returns to both lenders and borrowers are not fixed but dependent on the actual results of credit‐financed projects. Survey data is utilised to demonstrate that the instruments employed by banks in agrarian finance provide higher returns than non‐agricultural loans, and are hence attractive despite the yield and price uncertainty characteristic of agricultural production.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.