The Structure of Production, the Balance of Payments and Growth in Developing Countries: An Essay in Memory of Mohammed Nureldin Hussain 1954?2005

Abstract

This essay commemorates the work of Mohammed Nureldin Hussain who was Chief Research Economist in the African Development Bank, and Editor of the African Development Review from 2003 to his untimely death in 2005. It focuses on five aspects of his work: his emphasis on the role of the structure of production and trade for an understanding of growth rate differences between countries; his development of the balance of payments constrained growth model with capital flows; the application of this model to compare the performance of African and Asian countries; his use of this model as an alternative to the Harrod-Domar growth model for estimating the financing requirements in Africa to meet the Millennium Poverty Reduction targets by 2015 - and also for estimating the impact of the Highly Indebted Poor Country initiative on growth and poverty reduction in Africa, and finally, his critical appraisal in the 1980s of the supply-side approach to devaluation in his own country, the Sudan..