Regional Studies: Sub-Saharan Africa 
Recommended
A Matter of Life and Death
By Karol Boudreaux: "By some estimates South Africa has taken in over three million illegal immigrants in the past year - not just people in search of better jobs, but also Zimbabweans fleeing Robert Mugabe's reign. The unfortunate byproduct of this influx of immigrants is a longstanding and mostly dormant xenophobia that has reared its head. "
What Do We Really Know About the Spread of AIDS?
By Emily Oster. Emily Oster, a University of Chicago economist, looks at the stats on AIDS in Africa -- and comes up with a stunning conclusion: Everything we know about AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is wrong. We look for root causes such as poverty and poor health care -- but we also need to factor in, say, the price of coffee, and the routes of long-haul truckers. In short, there is a lot we don't know; and our assumptions about what we do know may keep us from finding the best way to stop the disease.
Private Education is Good for the Poor
by James Tooley and Pauline Dixon: "Our findings from a two-year in-depth study in India, Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya suggest that these conclusions are unwarranted. Private schools, we argue, can play—indeed, already are playing—an important, if unsung, role in reaching the poor and satisfying their educational needs."
Underdevelopment in Sub-Saharan Africa: The role of the private sector and political elites
In this paper, Moeletsi Mbeki explains how economic growth in Africa, as in the rest of the world, depends on a vibrant private sector. Entrepreneurs in Africa, however, face daunting constraints. They are prevented from creating wealth by predatory political elites that control the state. African political elites use marketing boards and taxation to divert agricultural savings to finance their own consumption and to strengthen the repressive apparatus of the state. Peasants, who constitute the core of the private sector in sub-Saharan Africa, are the biggest losers.In order for Africa to prosper, peasants need to become the real owners of their primary asset — land — over which they currently have no property rights.
Infidel: My Journey from Somalia to the West
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali: "I am sad that women who have inherited this social order, this civilization called the West, with its values of human rights, curiosity, trust, and integrity, might stand by and watch its decline."