Prior to his appointment as Vice Chancellor Ernest Aryeetey was a Senior Fellow and Director of the Africa Growth Initiative at the Brookings Institution. He was also Director of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of University of Ghana, Legon. His research focuses on the economics of development with interest in institutions and their role in development, regional integration, economic reforms, financial systems in support of development and small enterprise development. He is well known for his work on informal finance and microfinance in Africa. He is a member of the Governing Council of United Nations University, Tokyo. He has published with leading development journals and publishers and he is a co-editor of The Oxford Companion to the Economics of Africa (OUP, 2012). Ravi Kanbur is well known for his role in policy analysis and engagement in international development. He has served on the senior staff of the World Bank including as Chief Economist for Africa. He is also ranked in the top 0.5% of academic economists in the world. He is President-Elect of the Human Development and Capabilities Association, Past-President of the Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, Chair of the Board of UNU-WIDER, Co-Chair of the Scientific Council of the International Panel on Social Progress, member of the OECD High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance, and a member of the Core Group of the Commission on Global Poverty.
The book works diligently through its subject matter via an assemblage of chapters pivoting around carefully selected themes, which in the main deal with sectoral analysis and economic policy theory and practice. The sectors range quite ambitiously from the financial sphere through the ever vexatious and perennial question of land reform and agriculture, to the arenas of health care, education, gender, physical infrastructure and urbanization, among others. * Lloyd Amoah, African Affairs *