Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research
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Item Rainfall Insurance, Agricultural extension, Information asymmetry, and Small-holder farmer adoption practices in the Northern Region of Ghana(University of Ghana, 2020-03-20) Udry, C.We report the results of a 4-year RCT in the former Northern Region that provided rainfall index insurance, community-based agricultural extension services, improved access to agricultural input markets, and information on crop prices and short-run weather forecasts to small-scale farmers. We show that the insurance and extension treatments led farmers to adopt recommended agricultural practices and increase the use of fertilizer inputs. However, there is little evidence that these changes improved farmer outcomes, on average. Using machine-learning techniques, we show that there is evidence that treatment effects are heterogeneous, strongly depending upon the realizations of rainfall and temperature.Item Ghana’s economic achievements since independence(University of Ghana, 2020-03-03) Fosu, A.K.Three years ago, Ghana turned 60 years. What is its record of economic achievements? The current lecture, first, contrasts the economic outcomes between the pre- and post-reform periods. Second, it projects the importance of governance in sustaining the economic development record. Third, for continued sustained growth and development, the lecture flags challenges associated with: Ghana’s internal and external imbalances, debt accumulation, and the current trends in institutional qualityItem Why are Africa’s female entrepreneurs unable to play the export game? Evidence from Ghana(University of Ghana, 2020-02-25) Ackah, C.Using the Ghanaian ISSER-IGC panel, a survey of micro, small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises for 2011-2015, we explore how the underperformance of Africa’s female entrepreneurs can be explained by a male-female export gap, together with nine key business constraints. We find that female entrepreneurs are less likely to export and optimize their exports than their male peers. Importantly, we find that although access to finance is ranked more highly as a constraint by female entrepreneurs, this does not explain the difficulties they experience in optimizing exports. Consistent with related work, we find that constraints related to social and cultural norms, in particular concerning bribes and security, are especially important for females. This may hint at the exclusion of female entrepreneurs (voluntarily or involuntarily) from business networks or practices favored by their male peers.Item How (not) to do a literature review(2020-02-18) Steel, W.This seminar discusses some of the pitfalls of easy access to documents over the Internet in preparing a literature review specific to a particular dissertation topic. A literature review is a summary in your own words of definitions, concepts, theories, methodology and data from selected literature that is directly relevant to your topic and hypotheses and provides a framework for your research questions and methodology. Copy-and-paste is not an acceptable approach to a literature review, and constitutes plagiarism if the copied text is not properly put in quotation marks and cited. Suggestions are given on how to annotate and review literature and avoid plagiarism.