Research work (for book reviews click here)

Papers available on SSRN.

Current Working Papers

Books (suitable for advanced undergraduate and Master's level courses)
The books can be ordered from online booksellers like amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com

Academic articles
(In reverse chronological order of publication. Note, many links here are to pre-published working paper versions of the papers.  Published versions may vary.  Please consult the published version.)

  1. Les habitudes de lecture des élèves des établissements secondaires de Ouagadougou, 3ème et 1ère, leur performance scolaire et aspirations personnelles (with Félix Compaoré and Alain Sissao). Preliminary results of a survey of secondary school students in Ouagadougou, their reading habits and access to books, and also a section on internet usage. Bulletin des Bibliotheques de France, Vol 54, No. 4, 2009
  2. "Darfur: Rainfall and Conflict" (with Leslie Gray) Environmental Research Letters Vol.3, 2008.
  3. “How Much do Village Libraries Increase Reading?  Results from a Survey of 10th Graders in Burkina Faso” (with Alain Sissao) LIBRI: International Journal of Libraries and Information Services 2008, 58(3):202-210.
  4. Official Representations of the Nation: Comparing the Postage Stamps of Sudan and Burkina Faso, African Studies Quarterly version available here. Does Khartoum merit sympathy? No, as this comparative study of imagery on postage stamps suggests. Successive regimes in Khartoum have always promoted a narrow vision of national identity, quite different from the inclusive, multi-ethnic imagery promoted in Burkina Faso.
  5. Habitudes de lecture des élèves de 3ème dans les villages et petites villes du Burkina Faso (with Alain Sissao). This preliminary draft (in French) reports basic results of our survey of eight villages in Burkina Faso on reading habits, school performance and schooling aspirations. Comments most welcome! The article appeared in Bulletin des bibliothèques de France, 2007, Vol. 52(1) http://bbf.enssib.fr/.
  6. The Cost of Getting Books Read in Rural Africa: Estimates from a Survey of Library Use in Burkina Faso (with Alain Sissao). This paper appeared in the online journal World Libraries2006, Vol. 14(2), www.worldlib.org. the paper conducts a simple analysis to ask whether small public libraries in African villages are cost-effective ways to expand and improve literacy.
  7. Dim Delobsom: French Colonialism and Local Response in Upper Volta, a paper on the life of Dim Delobsom, first ethnographer of West Africa. The final version appeared in African Studies Quarterly. 2006, Vol. 8(4), http://www.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v8/v8i4a2.htm. I find Delobsom's life fascinating, and am working on a bande dessinée biography intended for high school students in Burkina Faso. This is a more academic oriented paper, but the biography will be in French.
  8. Do parents invest less when daughters move away? Evidence from Indonesia (with David Levine from U.C. Berkeley). Finds that there is no difference in the treatment of daughters in virilocal and uxorilocal areas. Should be of interest to demographers and anthropologists. Appeared in 2003 in World Development Vol. 31 , No. 6, pp. 1065-1084, 2003.
  9. Improving Design and Performance of Group Lending: Suggestions from Burkina Faso (with Barbara MkNelly of Freedom from Hunger).  This paper draws on case studies of three villages in Burkina Faso that has group-lending programs.  The objective is to point out some strains and flaws in the very rapid expansion of credit programs in West Africa. Appeared in 2003 in World Development Vol. 30, No. 11, pp. 2017-32.
  10. Community based targeting for social safety nets (with Jonathan Conning of Williams College).  A survey of the literature on decentralizing welfare programs and devolving authority to communities.  This paper has been printed as a World Bank Social Protection Unit discussion paper, and appeared in World Development in the March 2002 issue, Vol 30, No. 3, pp. 375-94. 
  11. Social Norms and the Time Allocation of Women's Labor in Burkina Faso  (co-authored with Bruce Wydick, USF)  Uses data on time allocation to argue that social norms are more restrictive for Mossi women than for Bwa women in a village in Burkina. The general point is that social norms may be strong influences on economic activity.  Review of Development Economics, v5, n 1, pp. 119-29, Feb. 2001.  Here is the appendix that goes with the final version.
  12. Evolving Tenure Rights and Agricultural Intensification in Southwestern Burkina Faso Co-authored with Leslie Gray.  We argue that there is little empirical evidence of tenure insecurity leading to land degradation using data from a three-village study.  Farmers, rather, are intensifying production in ways that make agriculture more sustainable.  We concentrate specifically on the different status and incentives facing Mossi and Bwa farmers, the main ethnic groups living in the region.  World Development Volume 29, Issue 4 , April 2001, Pages 573-587.
  13. Microenterprise Lending to Female Entrepreneurs: Sacrificing Economic Growth for Poverty Reduction? (co-authored with Bruce Wydick, USF) World Development Volume 29, Issue 7 , July 2001, Pages 1225-1236.  Using data from a microenterprise lending program in Guatemala, we show that, controlling for a host of other factors, while women's businesses are smaller than those of men, there is little significant difference in their rate of expansion upon being provided better access to credit. An exception is that female entrepreneurs in childbearing years show significantly lower rates of employment generation in enterprises than male entrepreneurs.
  14. Diminished Access, Diverted Exclusion Review of processes through which women in Africa are losing and gaining land.   Published in African Studies Review.  An earlier, longer version is called Land Tenure Status of African Women and is a comprehensive review of the literature, arguing that must focus on incidence of exercise of land rights, rather than just forms and nature of rights. 
  15. "A Woman's Field Is Made At Night": Gendered Land Rights and Norms in Burkina Faso   Argues that gendered rights to land are far more complex than usually imagined, are evolving in unexpected ways, and are responding to government interventions in ways other than intended. This gendering of land rights has implications for tests of household efficiency.  Published in Feminist Economics. Reprinted in 'Gender and Development', edited by Janet Momsen, Routledge, 2008, as Ch39, in Vol.III pp. 82-107.
  16. "Land Tenure and Rental in Western Sudan" Land Use Policy 1997, Vol. 14.
  17. "Agrarian Structure and Agricultural Practice: Typology and Application to Western Sudan" American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 1996, Vol 78.
  18. "Local Politics in the Time of Turabi's Revolution: Gender, Class and Ethnicity in Western Sudan" (with Leslie Gray) Africa, 1995, Vol. 65(2):271-96.
  19. "Village Labor Markets in Sheikan District, Sudan" World Development, 1994, Vol. 22(6).
  20. "Is the Sheil a Shill? Informal Credit in Rural Sudan" Journal of Developing Areas, 1993, Vol. 27.
  21. "For Whom is the Rural Economy Resilient? Initial Effects of Drought in Western Sudan" (with Leslie Gray) Development and Change, 1993, Vol. 24(1). 

Book chapters

  1. Burkina Faso, in Countries at the Crossroads 2007, Freedom House. This chapter reviews to political situation in Burkina Faso from a civic liberties and democracy perspective, for the years 2005 and 2006. I scored Burkina somewhat higher than the previous "rater", Prof. Augustin Loada, primarily because on many dimensions the government improved, and on only a few were there salient moves away from increased liberty.
  2. Freedom, Servitude, and Voluntary Labor (with Jonathan Conning). Paper that brings together different strands of the literature on agrarian contracts and unfree labor. This paper appeared in the volume Buying Freedom: The Ethics and Economics of Slave Redemption edited by K. Anthony Appiah and Martin Bunzl for Princeton University Press, 2007, pp. 108-40.
  3. Notes on Sweatshop Labor These are notes on the sweatshop labor issue that I use for teaching and lecturing. A slightly more polished version was included in a book on sweatshops: "Sweatshops: Ethical Aspects", in Sweatshops, editor Sumathi Reddy,  Hyderabad: The Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India University Press, 2006, pp. 21-34.
  4. Why is there not more financial intermediation in developing countries? Jonathan Conning and I have written a follow-up paper to our earlier paper on community based targeting. This explores the role more generally of intermediaries in deepening financial institutions. Appeared in a volume edited by Stefan Derçon for Oxford University Press, entitled Insurance Against Poverty, pp. 330-60, 2004.
  5. Sudan 2001-2002. This is a chapter for the reference work African Contemporary Record Vol. 28 2001-2002 (pp. B662-685). Teaneck, NJ: Africana Publishing Company, Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc., and summarizes and interprets events in Sudan over the two year period.
  6. Extra-household Norms and Intra-household Bargaining: Gender in Sudan and Burkina Faso  Develops the idea that gendered social norms may be important influences on economic activity, using fieldwork observations and data Click here for one of the graphs from the paper, showing the differential responsiveness of labor time in agriculture of Mossi and Bwa men and women, comparing households with farm equipment and those without farm equipment..  This is appeared in a volume edited by Anita Spring, Women Farmers and Commercial Ventures: Increasing Food Security in Developing Countries (Lynne Rienner, 2000, pp. 89-112)
  7. "A Developmental State Without Growth?  Explaining the Paradox of Burkina Faso in Comparative Perspective" (with Pierre Englebert) appeared in African Development Yearbook, an annual publication edited by Karl Wohlmuth of Bremen University, Germany, 1998.
  8. “Introduction: Kordofan Invaded” (with Endre Stiansen), in Endre Stiansen and Michael Kevane, eds. Kordofan Invaded: Peripheral Incorporation and Social Transformation in Islamic Africa. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic Publishers, 1998, pp.  1-45.

Short articles and encyclopedia articles (unrefereed)

  1. “L’accès et utilisation à l’Internet dans les établissements secondaires de Ouagadougou, 3ème et 1ère ” (with Alain Sissao and Félix Compaoré)  Cahiers de CEDRES, University de Ouagadougou, forthcoming.
  2. "Economic Systems in Africa", for The New Encyclopedia of Africa, 2nd edition, John Middleton and Joseph Miller, eds, 2007, pp. .
  3. “The Microsoft Education Award” in STS Nexus, 2007.
  4. Sudan - Economics: Access to Credit Organizations. This is an encyclopedia entry I wrote with Endre Stiansen on the access of women to credit in Sudan, for the Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures, published by Brill, 2007.
  5. "Economic Development in Sudan" in The Ahfad Journal: Women and Change Vol. 23, No. 2 (December, 2006), pp. 50-57. (Originally a keynote talk prepared for American Friends of the Episcopal Church of Sudan conference, 2006).
  6. “The Microsoft Education Award” in STS Nexus, 2006.
  7. Reflections on the Joint Assessment Mission, Forced Migration Review, Vol. 24, November 2005, p. 19.
  8. “The Knight Ridder Equality Award” in STS Nexus, 2005, Vol 6, N. 1, pp. 44-50.
  9. Résultats préliminaires d'une enquête sur la lecture à Ouagadougou (with Alain Sissao). This short paper that appeared in the Burkinabè publication Espace Scientifique in 2005 and deals with some methodological issues regarding our survey instrument after a pre-test of our questionnaire on reading habits in Burkina Faso. Of interest primarily to students and Francophone researchers in West Africa. A copy of our final questionnaire and reading test (in French) is available here.
  10. “Crisis in Darfur: Ethical Choices,” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics newsletter At the Center. Winter 2005.
  11. “The Agilent Equality Award” in STS Nexus, 2004, pp. 31-36.
  12. “The Work of the Civilian Protection Monitoring Unit in Sudan” Sudan Studies Association Newsletter, 2004. This is a short note explaining the work and presenting a compilation of statistics on the results of the investigations of the CPMT.
  13. “Understanding Sudan.”  (A short article commissioned as teaching material for the DVD edition of the documentary, Lost Boys of Sudan, that premiered on PBS in the Fall 2004.)  October 2004.
  14. Marriage in Africa: simple economics. Drawing on significant anthropological literature, this article addresses a wide variety of questions related to marriage in Africa. The article argues that the institution of marriage can be understood as an economic phenomenon. Appeared in The Ahfad Journal, December, 2002, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 24-41.
  15. “The Intel Environment Award” (with Dorothy Glancy) in STS Nexus, 2003, pp. 26-33.
  16. Interview with Lako Tongun, Sudanese political scientist in Sudan Studies Association Newsletter, Vol. 22, no. 1, 2003.
  17. Interview with Deborah Scroggins, author of "Emma's War: An Aid Worker, a Warlord, Radical Islam, and the Politics of Oil--A True Story of Love and Death in Sudan." in Sudan Studies Association Newsletter, Vol. 22, no. 1, 2003.
  18. Globalization and Development: Some Personal Reflections in explore Fall 2002, 6(1):32-35
  19. Why Do I Live in African Villages in explore Spring 2000, 3(3):27-30.
  20. Titanium Hoes? Explaining Why Wealthier Farmers have Higher Yields in Western Sudan  in Sudan Notes and Records Uses data from my dissertation to address the question of agrarian structure and agricultural practice, in a less technical discussion compared with my paper in American Journal of Agricultural Economics (see above).

Unpublished Working Papers

  • The changing status of daughters in Indonesia (with David Levine from U.C. Berkeley).  Uses data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey to show the remarkable relative equality in treatment of girls and boys in Indonesia (except in education, and even there the gap has narrowed to become almost non-existent).  Although this relative equality is well-known, we have not seen too many papers that document it over as many indicators and over as much time (using recall data back to the 1940s).  Prompts the question: Why is Indonesia so different from India and China in the treatment of daughters? 
  • Can there be an Identity Economics? Review with reference to northern Sudan Summarizes the economics approach to identity in terms of models that explicitly incorporate the identity of agents. Uses examples from Sudan to illustrate the importance of ethnic discrimination and reciprocity.  I never finished this, so it's a very rough draft.
  • "Qualitative Impact Study of Credit With Education in Burkina Faso" Freedom from Hunger Research Paper No. 3, Davis, CA.  (en français)

Book reviews

on Sudan (these have appeared in various issues of the Sudan Studies Association newsletter)

  1. Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2005) by Gerard Prunier.
  2. Darfur: A Short History of a Long War (London, Zed Books, 2005) by Alex de Waal and Julie Flint.
  3. All About Darfur (documentary film distributed by California Newsreel, 2005) by Taghreed Elsanhouri.
  4. Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, (University of California Press, Berkeley) by Heather Sharkey
  5. The Sword of the Prophet: The Mahdi of Sudan and the Death of General Gordon by Fergus Nicholl, Sutton Publishing Limited, Gloucestershire, England, 2004.
  6. Root Causes of Sudan's Civil War, 2003, (London: James Currey) by Douglas Johnson
  7. Battle for Peace in Sudan: An Analysis of the Abuja Conferences, 1992-93, University Press of America, Lanham, MD 2000, by Steven Wondu and Ann Lesch 
  8. The Sudan: Contested National Identities, Indiana University Press, 1998, by Ann Lesch.
  9. On Trek in Kordofan: The Diaries of a British District Officer in the Sudan , 1931-1933 edited by M.W. Daly, Published for The British Academy by Oxford University Press, 1994, by C.A.E. Lea.
  10. Aman: The Story of a Somali Girl as told to Virginia Lee Barnes and Janice Boddy, New York: Vintage Books, 1994
  11. Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad Waris Dirie and Cathleen Miller, New York: William Morrow, 1999.
  12. Imperial Echoes: The Sudan - People, History & Agriculture, Arthur Staniforth Oxford: Worldview Publishing, 2000
  13. Politics and Islam in Contemporary Sudan, Abdel Salam Sidahmed: New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999
  14. National Integration and Local Integrity, Gerd Baumann: The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, New York, 1987
  15. Making a Living in Rural Sudan" Production of Women, Labour Migration of Men, and Policies for Peasants' Needs, Elke Grawert,  New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.
  16. Cultivating Workers: Peasants and Capitalism in a Sudanese Village, 1991, (New York: Columbia University Press) by Victoria Bernal

on Development Economics

  1. Women in the South African Parliament University of Illinois press, Urbana IL, 2005, by Hannah Britton, appeared in Political Science Quarterly, Summer 2006, pp. 355-58.
  2. Marginal Gains: Monetary Transactions in Atlantic Africa (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2004) by Jane Guyer, appeared in Economic Development and Cultural Change.
  3. African Economic Development. Edited by Emmanuel Nnadozie. San Diego, CA:Academic Press, 2003, appeared in Journal of Economic Literature, Vol. 43, No. 1, p. 140, 2005
  4. Women, Poverty and Demographic Change, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, by Brigida Garcia, appeared in Journal of Economic Literature.
  5. Development Microeconomics, Bardhan, Pranab, and Udry, Christopher.  Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999, 242 pp, appeared in Journal of Economic Literature.
  6. Development Economics: From the Poverty to the Wealth of Nations , Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, by  by Yujiro Hayami, appeared in Journal of Economic Literature.
  7. Reflections on Human Development, New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, Pp. 252, by Mahbub ul Haq, , appeared in Journal of Economic Literature.
  8. Fieldwork in Developing Countries, Devereux, S. and Hoddinott, J. 1992.  (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf), appeared in Journal of African Economies.
  9. Commodities in Crisis: The Commodity Crisis of the 1980s and the Political Economy of International Commodity Policies (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992), by Alfred Maizels, , appeared in Journal of Economic Literature.

 

Unpublished policy 'op-ed' type pieces, about the Sudanese civil war