Models of protein evolution are used to describe evolutionary processes, for phylogeneticanalyses and homology detection. Widely used general models of protein evolution are biased toward globular domains and lack resolution to describe evolutionary processes for other protein types. As three-dimensional structure is a major constraint to protein evolution, specific models have been propo…

The loss of Y-linked genes during sex chromosome evolution creates a potentially deleterious low gene dosage in males. Recent studies have reported different strategies of dosage compensation. Unfortunately, most of these studies investigated taxa with comparatively old sex chromosome systems, which may limit insights into the evolution of dosage compensation and thus into the causes of differe…

Post debt relief, the number of African countries considering accessing international capital markets, often to fund large infrastructure projects, is increasing. Potential risks of capital inflows are well known but the literature offers little help to estimate the cost of borrowing internationally for the first time. This article proposes a twostep approach to estimate the sovereign credit…

Study of proteins located at the host–parasite interface in schistosomes might provide clues about the mechanisms utilized by the parasite to escape the hostimmune system attack. Micro-exongene (MEG) protein products and venomaller gen-like(VAL)proteins have been shown to be present in schistosome secretions or associated with glands, which led to the hypothesis that they are important compon…

This paper examines the determinants of net interest margins (NIMs) in four regional blocks in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using bank-level data,we find that countries with a high level of operating costs, a lowlevel of non-interest income, a high ratio of equity to total assets and high treasury-bill interest rates have higher NIMs. Moreover, high operating costs are associated with low measur…

We employ both the Panzar and Rosse (1987) and the Bresnahan (1982) models to test for competition in the South African banking sector.We find evidence consistent with monopolistic competition in the South African banking sector. While this may be considered relatively good news for consumers that South African banks are not acting as a cartel, there is need for policies and other intervention…

In this article, we examine the relationship between primary school fees and education quality and access over the past forty years in seven sub-Saharan African countries. School fees were introduced as a means for revenue-constrained governments to fund the improvement and expansion of primary education. Recently there has been a move towards their abolition. We find that the introduction of f…

Sex chromosomes have evolved independently in many different taxa, and so have mechanisms to compensate for expression differences on sex chromosomes in males and females. Different clades have evolved vastly different ways to achieve dosage compensation, including hypertranscription of the single X in male Drosophila, down regulation of both X’s in XX Caenorhabditis, or in activation of one …

In this article we analyse the relative importance of individual ability and labour market institutions, including public sector wage setting and trade unions, in determining earnings differences across different types of employment. To do this we use the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study panel data from South Africa, which show extremely large average earnings differentials across differen…

We study the impact of post-election ethnic violence in Kenya on the wheat and maize market in Mombasa and find empirical evidence that for these food markets, there is no impact on prices following violence. Using a data set of a flour producing firm, we identify the degree of persistence in prices and quantities by means of techniques based on long memory and long range dependence. Prices…