Openness, Globalization and Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence from Cote d´Ivoire, 1969-2002

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between openness, globalization on economic growth in Côte d’Ivoire which adopted the openness of its economy as the basic way for development at the beginning of its economic history in 1960. Using a three-variable vector autoregressive (VAR) model, we find that the three variables are tied together in the long-run. Although a positive effect of openness on growth is observed in the short-run, both increasing openness and globalisation do not have positively contributed to the long-run economic growth of this country, a finding that is in the opposite of the prediction of the new growth theory about the potential long-run effects of trade on growth.Openness, Globalization, Growth, Cointegration, Causality, Impulse response

GENDER, LAND ACCESS AND RURAL POVERTY IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE

The aim of this paper is to examine the link between land access (property rights) and gender (female and male) poverty in rural areas in Côte d’Ivoire, which economy is mainly based on agriculture products. The study particularly distinguishes households which head of family is a woman from those headed by a man. Several studies have shown that women headed households are the most exposed to poverty, specifically in rural areas. In effect, while this group of households can have a lucrative activity in urban areas, their activity is subject to land access in rural areas. The issue of property rights on rural lands is then essential in programs for gender poverty alleviation in rural areas.Gender, Land access, Property rights, Poverty

BUSINESS CYCLE AND SECTORAL FLUCTUATIONS: A NONLINEAR MODEL FOR CÔTE D’IVOIRE

Although the share of service sector in Côte d’Ivoire’s real GDP is higher than other sectors, it is widely recognized that the Ivorian economy is mainly based on agricultural sector and thus the fluctuations in this ‘motor’ sector could have a huge impact on the growth process of the country. We examine the issue of existence, identification and interaction of business cycle in Côte d’Ivoire’s GDP and compare its fluctuations with the disaggregated main economic sectors (agriculture, industry and service), by using a univariate Markov regime switching model and its multivariate version over the period 1970-2001. We found similarities and simultaneity of business cycle between the sectors of the economy. While the real GDP’s business cycle can be characterized, according to its mean duration (around 10 years) as a Juglar type cycle, the sectors’ cycles mean duration is shorter from 4 to 5 years.Business cycles, Economic Growth, Markov switching, Structural breaks, Time series analysis

Interview: Hip Hop and Activism in Kenya

Buddha Blaze is a Kenyan-based Hip Hop activist who participated and presented at the Hiphop Symposium in Nairobi on April 17th, 2013. He is a well-respected writer, organizer and promoter of Hip Hop in Kenya and beyond and is the co-founder of WAPI, one of the biggest platforms for underground Hip Hop artists in Kenya. The following piece is an interview that a member of the Afrikan Hiphop Caravan organising team and guest editor of this anthology, Katja Kellerer, held with Buddha Blaze via email in September 2013. The set of questions addresses a wide range of issues. In addition to outlining his personal involvement in Hip Hop activism and specific projects, including the Afrikan Hiphop Caravan, the interview offers insights into Blaze’s views and perceptions of local Hip Hop scenes as well as global Hip Hop culture

Integer points and their orthogonal lattices

Linnik proved in the late 1950's the equidistribution of integer points on large spheres under a congruence condition. The congruence condition was lifted in 1988 by Duke (building on a break-through by Iwaniec) using completely different techniques. We conjecture that this equidistribution result also extends to the pairs consisting of a vector on the sphere and the shape of the lattice in its orthogonal complement. We use a joining result for higher rank diagonalizable actions to obtain this conjecture under an additional congruence condition.Comment: 15 pages, and 6 pages of appendix, (Appendix by Ruixiang Zhang

WAGE DYNAMICS IN A STRUCTURAL TIME SERIES MODEL FOR LUXEMBOURG

This paper examines the relationships between monetary wage and its theoretical explanatory variables using a Structural Time Series (STS) model in order to take into account the unobserved components (trend, cycle, seasonal and irregular) of wage. Theoretically, the monetary wage is negatively related to labor productivity and unemployment rate but positively to the consumer price index and foreign prices. Our empirical results for a small open economy as Luxembourg indicate that the wage is positively related to the consumer price index and foreign prices as predicted by the theory, but the labor productivity and unemployment rate are not significant in the explanation of wages dynamics in the Luxembourg economy.Wage Bargaining, Labor Unions, Unobserved Components Models, Structural Time Series