This paper puts sub-Saharan Africa's economic development into perspective. While much did not go as hoped for at independence, much of the region has been on a more promising development trajectory since the mid-1990s, as we illustrate using growth, poverty, and human development indicators. We identify key weaknesses, including lack of structural transformation and the slow rate of employment growth. We refer to global shocks that have played a critical role in sub-Saharan Africa's economic performance alongside domestic events, policies, and governance. Finally, we discuss a set of critical challenges requiring effective management for sub-Saharan Africa to realize its considerable development potential.
In: Ferreira , I A R , Salvucci , V & Tarp , F 2021 , ' Poverty and Vulnerability Transitions in Myanmar : An Analysis Using Synthetic Panels ' , Review of Development Economics , vol. 25 , no. 4 , pp. 1919-1944 . https://doi.org/10.1111/rode.12836
While Myanmar achieved distinct progress in economic growth and poverty reduction over the past decade, extreme natural events; economic, political, and social crises; and the ongoing COVID- 19 shock pose serious challenges. This study complements previous analyses of poverty and vulnerability by providing a dynamic perspective for the period 2015– 2017. Given the lack of longitudinal household data, the analysis relies on the synthetic panels approach to further our understanding of transitions between different states— poverty, vulnerability, non- poverty— and the characteristics of the households associated with these transitions. Among the main results, we find that there was a relatively high probability for people, who were poor in 2015 to exit poverty in 2017,and that the probability of remaining in a vulnerable situation was non- negligible. Moreover, the results point to important differences in the probability of transitioning between different states depending on household and location characteristics. While the COVID- 19 shock has likely increased the proportion of households in the vulnerable and poor groups, these results highlight the need to focus on households with specific characteristics that make them more at risk of remaining or falling into poverty than the rest of the population in a context of diminishing poverty rates and localized vulnerability pockets.
Despite major public finance reform efforts over the last decade, Myanmarese public finances continue to be characterized by relative weakness in revenue collection, budget execution, and long-term sustainability. Myanmar is therefore in need of comprehensive public finance reform. Two top priorities of the Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan are to establish a fair and efficient tax system to increase government revenues, and to ensure effective public financial management. In this paper, we analyse the scope for fiscal tax reform to finance future Myanmar Union budget deficits and lower the need for central bank financing. Specifically, we employ a newly developed dynamically recursive computable general equilibrium model for Myanmar to analyse the economic efficiency and household income distribution impacts of employing four tax instruments, including the expansion of existing commercial taxes, customs duties, and corporate taxes, and the introduction of new secondary and tertiary education payroll taxes, to finance 2022- 40 government budget deficits. Our results demonstrate that eliminating Myanmarese government budget deficits could release savings for future capital accumulation and lead to net present value GDP gains, regardless of tax instrument, but also that real household welfare losses will be substantial and potentially persist throughout our 20-year horizon. While the payroll and enterprise tax instruments are identified as efficient and progressive, they are likely to suffer from weak tax bases, implying that commodity-focused tax instruments, including sales taxes and progressive but less efficient import tariffs, will need to continue to form the core of any comprehensive tax reform in Myanmar.
Myanmar has, in recent years, strengthened its focus on human capital as a development pillar, and introduced legislation and adopted conventions on child labour. But child exploitation continues, including use of forced labour by the military and children performing hazardous work. Moreover, Myanmar faces a rapidly closing window of opportunity within which to train its workforce to meet the future challenges of declining population growth and an ageing society. To address the twin challenges of child exploitation and future labour market needs, we study a comprehensive stylized education reform package for child workers aged 10-14. We employ a newly developed dynamically recursive 2021-40 computable general equilibrium model for Myanmar to analyse the economic and household income distribution impacts of a combined child work elimination and education programme allowing current child workers to achieve the same distribution of educational attainment as wider society over a 15-year transition period. While child work elimination would be costly for disadvantaged rural households, the combined programme may leave them better off, though only after a long transition period. At the societal level, the opportunity costs of child work elimination outweigh the long-term economic benefits of education over our 20-year horizon. In spite of the lack of societal economic benefits, our proposed reforms do seem to be advantageous, dealing with the unethical and appalling continuation of child labour practices while improving income distribution in favour of disadvantaged rural households. This would allow Myanmar to move towards the goal of SDG8, 'Decent Work and (Inclusive) Economic Growth', while training current generations to support an ageing Myanmarese society.
