Economic Reform and the Poor in Africa

This book examines policy responses to the economic crises faced by most African countries in the 1980s, focusing on the contentious issue of whether the poor are hurt by economic policies designed to restore macroeconomic stability, reinvigorate markets, and rationalize resource allocation. The contributors to this volume employ empirical methods to separate the effects of the economic crises that induced countries to begin to adjust from the impact of the eoconomic reforms themselves. With these models, they examine the impact of specific policy reforms -- under the broad headings of trade and exchange rate policy, fiscal poliocy, and agricultural sector policy -- in specific country concepts. The countries covered are Cameroon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Niger, Tanzania, and Zaire.