Abstract
Summary During the last 60 years development in Sub-Sahara Africa has had three main phases — P1, P2 and P3 — divided by kinks in 1972 and in 1994. P1 and P3 had fairly satisfactory growth, but P2 had negative growth. This cyclical growth path has to be explained by variables with a similar path. A set of socio-economic variables representing 11 hypotheses is considered. Some of these hypotheses have been proposed to explain the low growth of Africa, while most are meant to explain the growth tragedy of P2. Most of the variables have paths with no relation to the cycle, but the path corresponds to the shifts in the dominating development strategy. At the end of P1 the main policy-package in Africa became the one of African socialism. It led to large scale rent seeking, inefficiency and economic regression. At the end of P2 policies were adjustment towards a more market based system and growth resumed.
Highlights
This essay deals with the economic development of Africa, which is taken to mean Sub-Sahara Africa. 44 countries on the continent are considered
The many negative growth rates lead to a third possibility: Maybe a negative shock can put an African economy on a stable negative growth path?
Economic development in Africa has had a cyclical path with three distinct phases: P1 from 1950 till 1972 was a period of satisfactory growth; P2 from 1973 to 1993 had negative growth; and P3 from 1994 onwards where satisfactory growth has resumed
Summary
This essay deals with the economic development of Africa, which is taken to mean Sub-Sahara Africa. 44 countries on the continent are considered. It is assumed that they have so much in common that it makes sense to treat their development as a set of variations around a joint African path It discusses three theories most economists automatically reach for when they try to explain the development of Africa.
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