The success of Mobile Money Services (MMS) led many Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) around the world to venture into offering similar products. In Africa, the dwindling revenues in the mobile telephone voice business as well as the proliferation of mobile phone handsets further enticed the...

The economies of most southern Africa economies are growing with the exception of Swaziland which is yet to recover from the worst fiscal crisis that hit the country since independence in 1966. The economies of Angola, Zimbabwe and Mozambique are expected to grow by over 7 percent in 2012, making...

Economic activity in Southern Africa was subdued during the second quarter of 2012, though progress remained on course for the region to attain an end-of-year real gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate of 4.0 percent. Lackluster performance in South Africa adversely affected other countries,...

This brief seeks to examine the various geographically proximate African FTAs in the context of analyzing the deeper and expand models of economic integration and endeavor to indicate which of the two is likely to prevail. The compelling discussion in the brief is on the real or potential of either...

1 What is the African Development Bank Group? The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group is a multilateral development finance institution established to contribute to the economic development and the social progress of African countries. The agreement establishing the Bank on August 4, 1963 in...

After one and a half decades of democracy, the South African economy still faces serious challenges to further improvements of sustained economic growth performance and elimination of poverty and reduction of inequality (Kirsten and Davies 2008). Although economic growth performance improved...

This paper investigates the various channels through which an unexpected positive shock in euro area bond yields and expansion monetary policy are transmitted to South Africa using structural vector autoregression (SVAR) models. This investigation is motivated by the adoption of largescale balance-...

There finally comes 27thJuly 2012, where the level of preparation and strength of performance across countries are to be tested in diverse kinds of sports. Yes, it is ‘London 2012’; the popular Olympic Games involving 205 countries competing for different medals (Gold, Silver and Bronze...

Despite being a source of income to about 43 percent of Africa’s population, informal cross border trade (ICBT) is generally regarded as illegal commercialization of cross border activities2. ICBT can have positive macroeconomic and social ramifications such as food security and income creation...