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Showing all Projects in Ghana
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Project
Spatial analysis of firm productivity in Ghana: Misallocation versus market power
There is mounting evidence, especially for developing countries, that resources are often not allocated to their optimal use. This manifests itself in a failure of first-order conditions to hold, such that the marginal (social) benefit of a production factor is not equated to its marginal cost. Such misallocation is often interpreted as resulting from frictions or market...
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Technology and local tax capacity: Evidence from Ghana
This project emerged as a follow-up to the extensive census of local tax capacity conducted in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and the head of Local Government Services in 2018. One major finding that stood out was that most local governments lack technological support in the creation of property registries, the valuation of properties, and the...
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Measuring the economic situation in Ghana in real time during COVID-19
In response to the worldwide spread of COVID-19, the government of Ghana had to take unprecedented policy measures. Because of the rapid spread of the virus, policymakers are required to adjust their goals frequently, reflecting changing circumstances and private sector's responses to policies. This project aimed at providing real-time information to policymakers in Ghana...
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From paper to practice: Implementing civil service reform in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia
This project aims to document and explain the implementation record of performance-oriented civil service reforms in Africa. It will use Ghana, Kenya, and Zambia as case studies. Most recent research on state effectiveness has focused on identifying the causal effects of particular management practices or experimental interventions. However, most large-scale changes to how...
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Dealing with single-use plastics: Examining the economic effect of a ban in Ghana
Many cities in sub-Saharan Africa are increasingly experiencing widespread usage of single-use plastic products and the associated littering. This is having a devastating impact on economies, ecosystems, infrastructure and human lives. Single-use plastics are used only once before they are disposed of or recycled. These items include plastic bags, sachets, straws and...
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The productivity and allocation of public personnel and funds: Evidence from government health facilities in Ghana
Frontline public services are delivered by government officials working in facilities spread across the country. Therefore, governments must decide how to allocate these scarce human resources and complement them with financial inputs. Paying these workers typically consumes a significant proportion of government expenditures. As such, governments have an enormous financial...
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The impact of public investment in graduate training on development outcomes in Ghana
Over the years, successive governments in Ghana have prepared and implemented various development plans, all aimed at providing opportunities for job creation. The recent government’s coordinated programme of economic and social development policies - launched in April 2018 - puts job creation and the promotion of higher incomes at the core of policy objectives. To...
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Building tax capacity at scale: Evidence from technology investments in Ghana
Increased capacity to collect taxes leads to the funding of public goods which have high returns and contributes to the wider state-development process (Schumpeter, 1918; Besley and Persson, 2010). At the heart of any strong tax system lies the ability to accurately observe economic activities and use this information as inputs into an efficient billing, collection, and...
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Harnessing technology to exorcise ghosts
Ghana, as a developing country, has always been strapped of resources to promote growth and development. Revenue mobilised has never been sufficient for taking care of recurrent expenditure, and therefore the country has had to rely heavily on external grants and loans to support development projects. A closer look at the budget of the Government of Ghana shows that much...
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The political economy of power outages in Ghana: New measures and analysis
Access to energy is crucial for economic growth. While global attention has focused heavily on increasing access, an under-recognised constraint in many countries is poor reliability of electricity supply. This project introduces a new measure of power supply reliability and outages based upon temporal variations in nighttime light output. This work builds upon ongoing...