Evidence of Behavioural Compensation in Internal Replication Study of Male Circumcision Trial to Reduce HIV Acquisition in Kisumu,Kenya

We replicated the study ‘Male circumcision for HIV prevention in young men in Kisumu, Kenya: a randomised controlled trial’ using an epidemiological approach as well as an econometric approach. Both approaches confirmed the 60 per cent protective effect of circumcision reported in the original paper. Similar to the original paper, we found no evidence of heterogeneous treatment effects by age. Contrary to the original study, we found evidence of risk compensation, with circumcised men less likely to stay abstinent (odds ratio 0.79 [95% CI: 0.64, 0.99]) and more likely to have had unprotected intercourse (OR 1.2 [1.1, 1.4]). These findings reinforce the impact of circumcision but highlight behavioural risk.     

The legitimacy of Dutch do-it-yourself initiatives in Kwale County,Kenya

Abstract

Established development organisations face a long-standing legitimacy crisis for not living up to the expectations once set. Meanwhile, thousands of small-scale, voluntary development organisations – referred to as Private Development Initiatives (PDIs) – have joined the field of international development. In this article, I examine the legitimacy of their acts from a local government perspective based on an analysis of four dimensions of legitimacy: regulatory, pragmatic, normative and cognitive legitimacy. The study took place in May 2017 in the Kenyan coastal county of Kwale. A range of government officials were interviewed on how they perceive the interventions of international development organisations in general, and Dutch PDIs in particular, and on their cooperation with these development actors. The study shows that, although many of these PDIs operate in areas that fall under the responsibility of the local government, most of them have a rather limited cooperation with the local government, putting their legitimacy in the eyes of local government officials at stake.     

Urbanization,personal income,and physical quality of life: The case of Kenya

This paper addresses a variety of methodological, theoretical, and historical problems associated with previous research on urbanization and development in Kenya. The first part of the paper discusses several general theories of Third World urbanization and development. Next, these perspectives are examined within the context of recent historical circumstances in Kenya. The final part of the paper presents an entirely new quantitative study of urbanization and development in Kenya. It improves on earlier research by using (1) data fromall urban regions of the country, (2) a statistical model that testschange over time, and (3) several new variables. Overall, the analysis shows that both the causes and effects of urbanization are more complex than what was indicated in previous studies. The quantitative findings can be explained by reference to various theoretical and historical concerns discussed in the paper.     

Change in state power,international conditions and peasant producers: The case of Kenya

Arguments for food self‐sufficiency at the level of small‐scale farms invariably refer to the need for national self‐sufficiency. This article shows that state‐inspired attempts to impose self‐sufficiency upon specialised middle peasant producers in Kenya have had the effect of reducing the supply of marketed food and increasing food imports. A change in the character of presidential power has also inhibited food production by large‐scale farms and this, together with imported price shocks, has reduced the supply of food for commercialised peasants who produce for international markets. Only very specific political conditions make it possible for international and internal circuits of capital and exchange to be harmonised through the power of a nation state.     

State formation,development, and the politics of self-help in Kenya

Issues of rural development, state formation, and political effectiveness are of paramount importance in Africa today. Analysis of Kenya's Harambee self-help approach to development contributes to our understanding of these issues by clarifying not only the ways in which political and economic concerns are linked in one African nation in a hierarchy based on a patrimonial model of political behavior but also some facets of elite behavior and peasant-state relationships. This paper argues that self-help is central to Kenyan politics and hence to the operation of this model of political behavior, serving the interests and needs of both Kenyan elites and rural communities. Through their self-help projects rural Kenyans neither reject the state retreating into the economy of affection nor permit elites exclusive access to the benefits of both public and private resources. Rather, using elite networks to gain support for self-help projects, residents of rural communities improve their access to highly valued collective goods. These processes are currently being modified in some important ways by the Moi government.     

Democracy,confusion, or chaos: Political conditionality in Kenya

We argue that the policy of conditioning all economic development aid on a process of democratization is a mistake. Good economic policy should be rewarded for its own sake. The process of democratization is costly to participants, and forcing it prematurely can lead to institutional collapse rather than development. Unclear definition of political conditionality has made donor policies inconsistent and capricious. We make these arguments conceptually and then review the experience of one of the most explicit cases of conditionality-induced “democratization”—Kenya. An aid cutoff stimulated the government to hold multiparty elections for the first time in many years. Despite the apparent success, the human and economic costs have been high, and the political changes less than donors hoped.     

The Folklore of Finland's Eastern Trade

Until the end of 1990, Finland was the only developed market economy to trade with the USSR on a bilateral clearing basis. It was also, so it is widely believed in Finland, the only one among the neighbours of the Soviet Union to benefit greatly economically from this trade. This article does not aim to clarify whether such beliefs are well grounded in fact, but rather to look at the beliefs themselves. To do that, we examine a large amount of so-called grey literature: memoirs, biographies and fiction, but not research proper in economics or economic history. Belief in the benefits of Eastern Trade has been widely held in Finland, but there have always been sceptics as well. The materials used offer many insights, for instance, into the character of Eastern Trade, negotiations procedures, pricing and quality issues, relations between the counterparts, as well as the implications of COCOM restrictions of trade by a neutral country.     

Trade Liberalisation,the Peso,and Mexico's Commodity Trade Flows with the United States

We assess the effects of real peso devaluations, as well as the effects of GATT and NAFTA, on Mexico's in-payments and out-payments with the United States for 102 industries. We find that relatively few trade flows are sensitive to changes in the real exchange rate, probably due to production-sharing and intra-industry trade, but devaluations affect Mexican imports more than exports. Trade liberalisation has had a larger impact, particularly on imports of intermediate goods and exports of certain manufactures. Many affected export industries are ones that have previously been shown to have economies of scale.     

Impact of Internal In-Migration on Income Inequality in Receiving Areas: A District Level Study of South Africa

The impact of internal migration on regional income inequality of the receiving areas has hitherto gone largely unstudied. This dearth of literature is especially surprising because income inequality and in-migration into urban centres of growth are two issues that many developing economies are faced with and tackling these issues effectively involves understanding the interactions between these two related phenomena. This study is therefore a first attempt to analyse the impact of internal in-migration on receiving areas and is placed in the context of South Africa. Based on a conceptual analysis, the study argues that in-migration into the formal sector of the receiving areas will in general reduce inequality while in-migration into the informal or unemployed sector increases inequality. Using individual panel data the study further tests empirically at the district level the impact of in-migration and finds that rising urban inequality in urban areas can be attributed at least in part to rural-urban migration. This works through both the wage as well as employment channel. The employment channel can be said to have a stronger impact than the wage channel as indicated by the coefficients estimated through our system GMM regression analysis.     

Violence and Urban Order in Nairobi, Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria

This article examines the interaction between politics and informal institutions of order in two of Africa’s most violent and crime-ridden cities, Nairobi, Kenya and Lagos, Nigeria. In both cities, governments have failed to provide basic public services and security to citizens, especially to those who reside in informal settlements or slums. A variety of informal institutions, including ethnic militia and block-level vigilante groups, fulfill security and enforcement roles in these relatively ungoverned urban spaces. This article examines the differences in the character and organization of these “specialists in violence,” and it argues that these differences are often integrally linked to the political strategies and aims of elites. The article makes two primary contributions to existing understandings of informal order in violent cities in the developing world. First, I find that organizations seemingly organically linked to local communities, such as ethnic militia, are strongly influenced by national-level political struggles. Violent organizations can gain a foothold and degree of legitimacy by appealing to traditional loyalties, including ethnicity, but organizations with these advantages are also attractive targets for cooptation by political actors. Secondly, both direct state repression and electoral use of militia lead to more predatory forms of interaction between these groups and local communities.     

Business,Brokers and Borders: The Structure of West African Trade Networks

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to show how a formal approach to networks can make a significant contribution to the study of cross-border trade in West Africa. Building on the formal tools and theories developed by social network analysis, we examine the network organisation of 136 large traders in two border regions between Niger, Nigeria and Benin. In a business environment where transaction costs are extremely high, we find that decentralised networks are well adapted to the various uncertainties induced by long-distance trade. We also find that long-distance trade relies both on the trust and cooperation shared among local traders, and on the distant ties developed with foreign partners from a different origin, religion or culture. Studying the spatial structure of trade networks, we find that in those markets where trade is recent and where most of the traders are not native of the region, national borders are likely to exert a greater influence than in those regions where trade has pre-colonial roots. Combining formal network analysis and ethnographic studies, we argue, can make a significant contribution to the current revival of interest in cross-border trade in the policy field.