Poverty Impact of Rising Maize Prices in Kenya

The recent hike in food prices has been of great concern to policymakers, international organisations and donor agencies. In this paper we discuss, both from a partial and general equilibrium perspective, the impact of the recent price increase on maize on Kenyan households. Simulating a 100% increase in maize prices, we find that the headcount ratio in urban areas increased by 3-4 percentage unit points, depending on the size of windfall gain to producers. Based on the assumption that the price shock is passed through in total to the farmers, food poverty in the rural areas could be reduced by almost 14%. If incomes are not passed through, rural food poverty would increase quite significantly in some provinces. It is the poorest of the poor in both urban and rural areas who are most adversely affected. Policy reforms, which would reduce marketing margins and fertiliser prices, would be important factors in promoting a positive impact on performance in the maize sector. The regional maize trade within East Africa seems to have a role to play, and exploring the impact of total integration of the maize markets could be a topic of further research.Food crisis; maize; Kenya; poverty; distribution; net benefit ratio; CGE

Trade Policies and Export growth - employment and poverty impact in Tanzania

This report focuses on trade and exchange rate policies in Tanzania. The composition of Tanzanian exports has changed dramatically since early 2000. In examining the determinants of trade with a particular focus on Tanzanian exports, we found that changes in the real exchange rate did not have a significant impact on exports. However, supply-side effects and trading partner economic performance are more important, as is the distance to market (or transport cost). The second part of this report discusses the impact of trade reforms on employment and poverty in the Tanzanian economy. In the long-term scenarios poorer households seem to gain more from trade liberalisation compared to the richer household groups. In the short-term, trade liberalisation would be beneficial to female workers and poor households, if labour is able to move between sectors. If wages are rigid, trade liberalisation will lead to unemployment and wages for casual labour will drop significantly. A nominal wage increase during liberalisation can have a significant impact on unemployment, driving casual workers’ wages down further. If the trade union adjusts worker premiums during trade reform, this would not only save some of the jobs of members, but also benefit non-unionised workers in other sectors as well. The alternative option of a reduction in export taxes would have a stronger impact on export supply, poor households would gain more than with liberalisation..Trade liberalisation; labour markets; poverty; Tanzania

Growth, Income Distribution, and Poverty: A Review

This paper reviews the recent literature dealing with the relationships between economic growth, income distribution, and poverty. This generally fails to find any systematic pattern of change in income distribution during recent decades. Neither does it find any systematic link from fast growth to increasing inequality. Some recent empirical evidence has tended to confirm the negative impact of inequality on growth, on the other hand. Others have found that the level of initial income inequality is not a robust explanatory factor of growth, though high inequality in the distribution of assets, such as land, has a significantly negative effect on growth. Possible channels are credit rationing, reduced possibilities for participation in the political process, and social conflicts. Among the strategic elements that contributed to reduced poverty are: an outward-oriented strategy of export-led growth, based on labour-intensive manufacturing; agricultural and rural development, with encouragement of new technologies; investment in physical infrastructure and human capital; efficient institutions that provide the right set of incentives to farmers and entrepreneurs; and social policies to promote health, education, and social capital, as well as safety nets to protect the poor. Countries that have been successful in terms of economic growth are also very likely to be successful in reducing poverty. Poverty can be reduced if there is sufficient economic growth. Growth can be substantial if the policy and institutional environment is right.Growth; income distribution; poverty; economic policy

Tax Evasion in Kenya and Tanzania:Evidence from Missing Imports

In this paper we estimate the amount of tax evasion in customs authorities in both Kenya and Tanzania by calculating measurement errors in reported trade flows between the two countries and correlate those errors with tax rates. We find that the measurement error is correlated with the tax rates in both Kenya and Tanzania. According to the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, Kenya is more corrupt than Tanzania, but we find that the coefficient on tax is higher in Tanzania compared to Kenya implying that tax evasion on imported goods is higher in Tanzania compared to the Kenya. We also introduced a third country into our analysis, the United Kingdom, and tax evasion seems to be more severe in trade flows between Kenya and Tanzania compared to trade flows between the United Kingdom and Kenya/Tanzania. Finally we also find that the tax evasion coefficient is lower in the Kenya-United Kingdom case compared to the Tanzanian-United Kingdom case which supports our previous finding that tax evasion is more severe in the Tanzanian customs authority.Tax evasion; corruption; trade; Kenya; Tanzania

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements