DECEMBER 2011:
AFRICA'S MIDDLE-CLASS MOTOR
The African IT Revolution—with a Feminine Touch
Lika Gueye
AkiraChix startup company offers girls
technology training and experience
(available online only)
What Ails South Africa
Abebe Aemro
Selassie
Plagued by high unemployment and closely
tied to Europe, South Africa struggles
Straight Talk: The Quality of Growth
Antoinette Sayeh
Poor households are benefiting from
sub-Saharan Africa's high growth and
wider global reach
Building an African Infrastructure
Paul Collier
Key political decisions are needed to
build critical rail networks for a
continent well suited to them
Undoing the resource curse
Kenyan infrastructure
The "bottom billion"
Point of View: Preventing Famine
Josette Sheeran
The ongoing drought and famine in the
Horn of Africa make a case for using
global risk management to achieve food
security
Picture This: Africa—A Look into the Future
Natalie
Ramírez-Djumena
What will the continent be like in 50
years' time?
Data Spotlight: Trade in East Africa
Shelley Winston
and Carolina Castellanos
Increased intraregional trade and lower
tariffs are paving the way for faster
growth
Also in This Issue
Role Reversal
Eswar S. Prasad
Emerging economies are less dependent on
debt, less vulnerable to volatile
investment sentiment, and are rethinking
the role of capital flows
Land for Sale
Raghuram Rajan
and Rodney Ramcharan
Clues to whether easy credit causes
booms and busts in asset prices can be
found in U.S. farmland prices a century
ago
To Sell or Not
John Quiggin
The author of Zombie Economics
looks at the pros and cons of
privatization
Fixing the Flaws in EMU
Florence
Jaumotte
The euro area's long-term survival calls
for a fundamental transformation of
policymaking
A Cushion for the Poor
Evan Tanner and
Jorge Restrepo
Commodity-exporting governments can
reduce debt and still protect their
least well off citizens
Less Volatile than Meets the Eye
Rabah Arezki,
Daniel Lederman, and
Hongyan Zhao
Contrary to popular wisdom, commodity
prices can be more stable than prices of
manufactured products
Are the Critics Right?
Masahiro Nozaki,
Benedict Clements, and
Sanjeev Gupta
A new study finds that public education
and health spending get a boost when
low-income countries receive IMF
financial support
Departments
People in Economics
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala on a different Africa
Back to Basics
What Is Econometrics?
Sam Ouliaris
Taking a theory and quantifying it
Book Reviews
Eclipse: Living in the Shadow of China's Economic Dominance, Arvind Subramanian
Tearing Down Walls: The International Monetary Fund 1990–1999, James Boughton