The paper investigates whether the East African Community, comprising of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, constitutes an optimum currency area or not. The East African Community has been revived, and one of the long-term objectives of the Community is to have a common currency. The paper employs the Generalised Purchasing Power Parity method, and various criteria suggested by the theory of Optimum Currency Areas to investigate the optimality of the Community as a currency area. While the various indices that we calculated based on the theory of Optimum Currency Areas gave mixed verdicts, the Generalised Purchasing Power Parity (G-PPP) method supports the formation of a currency union in the region.Using the G-PPP method, we were able to establish cointegration between the real exchange rates in East Africa for the period 1981 to 1998, and even for the period 1990 to 1998. This finding suggests that the three countries tend to be affected by similar shocks.

https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/2675/1/gunwpe0041.pdf

Is East Africa an Optimum Currency Area

There is little guidance available to students and researchers interested in investigating the character of economic development in Rhodesia concerning available literature and deficiencies in various fields of study. This essay is an attempt to briefly outline existing literature, and comment on some of its shortcomings. The most important works in the available literature on Rhodesian economic development are contained in the annexed bibliography. The reasons for inclusion are varied. Many works are not in the strictly (neo-classical) economic domain. An interdisciplinary approach to problems of underdevelopment is regarded by this writer as the most appropriate methodology and hence a number of works dealing with politics, sociology, race relations, and history are set down. Some studies are as yet unpublished and so have been noted so that outsiders may be informed of their existence. Overall, the literature cited contains most of what is known and published on all facets of Rhodesian economic development. In this paper no attempt will be made to discuss each and every work in any depth. The primary focus will be to highlight important studies as they relate to the economics of underdevelopment in Rhodesia. Naturally, since my own particular discipline (economics) tends to bias my reading and appreciation of the literature towards selected areas of the bibliography, this note will emphasize those works dealing with economic structures, more particularly those studies dealing with the post World War II and contemporary period.

The Economics of Underdevelopment in Rhodesia: An Essay on Selected Bibliography

Much of the contemporary literature on food security has focused on the rural sector. However, within the current context of high demographic growth, rapid urbanization and rising urban poverty which characterizes much of Sub-Saharan Africa, urban food insecurity cannot continue to be ignored. This study therefore examines the vulnerability of poor households to food insecurity in the challenging urban environment of Harare in Zimbabwe, an acute example of a city (and country) ‘in crisis’. Findings from qualitative and quantitative research demonstrate severe food insecurity characterized by critical food shortages and the consumption of narrower diets among poor households in the city. Household vulnerability to food insecurity stemmed from a range of factors, including: high levels of unemployment and poverty; high dependency ratios; low levels of house ownership; hyperinflation; skyrocketing food prices; and the general collapse of the formal food system. Vulnerability to food insecurity was further exacerbated by a prolonged adverse socio-political climate that undermined national economic recovery and reduced the livelihood opportunities available to the urban poor. The paper concludes that in Harare, as in most urban areas of the developing world, the urban poor have become highly vulnerable to food insecurity.

http://www.afsun.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Vulnerability-in-Crisis.pdf

Vulnerability in crisis: urban household food insecurity in Epworth, Harare, Zimbabwe

https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/416/1/025664646.pdf

Regional integration among developing countries : opportunities, obstacles and options

i List of Content ii List of Tables viii List of Figures xi List of Abbreviation and Acronyms xiii Preface and Acknowledgement xv Declaration xvi Chapter I: Introduction 1 1.1 Background and Introduction 1 1.2 Motivation of the Study 3 1.3 Research Questions 4 1.4 Aims, Objectives, and Contribution Study 4 1.5 Research Hypotheses 5 1.5.1 Regional Integration Contributes to Growth and Convergence 5 1.5.2 Regional Integration Contributes to Macroeconomic Convergence 6 1.5.3 Regional Integration Leads to the Sustainability of Macroeconomic Policies 6 1.6 Research Methodology 7 1.7 Significance of the Study ........8 1.8 Limitations of the Study 9 1.9 Structure of the Study 10 1.9.1 Chapter

/pdf/regional-integration-and-sustainable-growth-in-sub-sahara-4qv8ba0f89.pdf

T. R. C. Curtin

Papers

Economic Integration in Africa

Rhodesian economic development under sanctions and ‘the long haul’