 | Book Review of Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa
November 16, 2009 Journal Articles Johan van der Walt |
| Dambisa Moyo’s new book, Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa, has received a great deal of attention in the last few months. Moyo’s book is a must-read for any person interested in the question of why some countries are rich while others remain stagnant or poor.
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| Economic Freedom, Culture, and Growth
October 23, 2009 Working Papers Claudia Williamson,
Rachel Mathers |
| How do economic freedom and culture impact economic growth? This paper argues that culture and economic institutions, specifically economic freedom, both play a role in economic development independently, but the strength of their impact can only be better understood when both are included in the growth regression.
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| Land Reform as Social Justice: The Case of South Africa
October 9, 2009 Working Papers Karol Boudreaux |
| In his 1976 work Law, Legislation and Liberty, F.A. Hayek discusses the concept of social justice, pursued by redistributing resources acquired through an unplanned and impersonal market order, to increase the material equality or equality of outcome of the members of that order. But, how would these prescriptions translate into actual policy making? What kinds of policies would correct past injustice but not work a new injustice?
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 | Land Tenure Security and Agricultural Productivity
September 9, 2009 Mercatus On Policy Daniel Sacks,
Karol Boudreaux |
| Achieving land tenure reform is by no means an easy or quick process. However, the benefits over the long term can lead to substantial gains for smallholder farmers’ competitiveness.
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 | Halting Hunger: Long-term Solutions to Systemic Problems in African Agriculture
July 24, 2009 Mercatus Policy Series Daniel Sacks |
| Government intervention and interference in agricultural markets prevents the growth of commercial agricultural sectors and decreases the ability of African farmers to improve their standards of living through agriculture. To combat hunger and to encourage economic development, African governments need to embark on reforms that allow farmers to use agriculture to improve their lives.
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| Land Conflict and Genocide in Rwanda
July 11, 2009 Journal Articles Karol Boudreaux |
| In his 2005 best-selling book Collapse, Jared Diamond argues that some societies “choose to fail or succeed.” One of the cases he explores in his book is the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which he calls a modern day Malthusian crisis. However, the arguments he employs to explain why Rwandan society was unable to peacefully and effectively manage rising population pressures overlook a host of political factors that limited the ability of people to respond to increased competition for land in pre-genocide Rwanda.
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| The Role of Entrepreneurship in Conflict Reduction in the Post-Genocide Rwandan Coffee Industry
June 26, 2009 Working Papers Jutta Tobias,
Karol Boudreaux |
| Entrepreneurship is widely acknowledged as a catalyst for poverty reduction and economic development. This paper presents evidence from a field survey conducted during the summer of 2008 among a sample of Rwanda’s emerging specialty coffee workers and reports on significant correlations between economic satisfaction and life satisfaction, as well as meaningful work contact with members from the other group with an attitude of reconciliation.
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 | Cautiously Optimistic: Economic Liberalization and Reconciliation in Rwanda’s Coffee Sector
June 10, 2009 Journal Articles Karol Boudreaux,
Puja Ahluwalia |
| In the lead article of this volume of the Denver Journal of International Law & Policy, Enterprise Africa! Lead Researcher Karol Boudreaux and Stanford law student Puja Ahluwalia examine mechanisms for reconciliation in post-genocide Rwanda. The article focuses on both formal legal institutions and informal means, particularly in the coffee sector.
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 | Fixing Famine: How Technology and Incentives Can Help Feed Africa
June 10, 2009 Mercatus Policy Series Daniel Sacks,
Jasson Urbach |
| This Policy Comment presents four types of simple technologies that can make small plots of lands more productive and increase farmers’ outputs and incomes: hybrid and genetically modified seeds, greenhouses, irrigation, and plug seedlings. If African governments reduce barriers against these technologies, the people can mitigate hunger and begin to address the larger systemic problems.
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 | Review of Starved for Science
April 13, 2009 Journal Articles Daniel Sacks |
| In Starved for Science: How Biotechnology Is Being Kept Out of Africa, Robert Paarlberg argues that Africa fails to feed itself in part because of the limited use of biotechnology and blames African governments and their European counterparts for that failure. See what Enterprise Africa! researcher Dan Sacks has to say. |
