Growth In Sub-Saharan African Countries Research Articles

Growth, Democracy, and Civil War

Does economic growth affect the likelihood of civil war? Answering this question requires dealing with reverse causation. Our approach exploits that international commodity prices have a significant effect on the income growth of Sub-Saharan African countries. We show that lower income growth makes civil war more likely in non-democracies. This effect is significantly weaker in democracies; as a result, we find no link between growth and civil war in these countries. Our reduced form results also indicate that lower international commodity price growth has no effect on civil war in democracies, but raises the likelihood of civil war incidence and onset in non-democracies.

The impact of policy reversal on economic performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

The literature suggests that investment and economic growth respond very slowly to economic reform due to uncertainty about the permanence of reform. Despite clear theoretical underpinnings for the idea that policy reversal significantly impedes economic performance, there is limited empirical evidence on this topic. This paper derives empirical proxies for the probabilities of different types of policy reversal and investigates their impact on investment and growth in Sub-Saharan African countries. The results show that trade, fiscal, savings and financial policy reversals have been very damaging to investment and economic growth. The paper also finds that it is the prediction or expectation that reversal will occur that hurts performance. There is no evidence that exchange rate policy reversal has damaged performance.

Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa, in the aggregate, has had the worst growth performance of any major region of the world over the last few decades. It is important to recognize, however, the enormous diversity in growth experiences at the country level. Some countries, like Botswana and Cape Verde, have grown consistently. Others, including Madagascar and Niger, have seen persistent declines in income. Many countries, Cote d'Ivoire being one example, saw early growth only to be followed by economic decline. A few, like Uganda, after early stagnation and decline experienced growth in more recent years. Average growth rates over a period of several decades do not capture the complexities of the growth process in many countries. This paper examines growth in sub-Saharan African countries in detail over the period 1961 to 1996 by looking not only at average growth rates over this time period, but also at decade by decade growth rates, peak income years, nadir income years, and the variance of growth rates. Countries are classified, by the pattern of growth from 1961 to 1996, into one of five groupings. In addition to characterizing growth in Africa, the relevant literature is also reviewed. Explanations for the poor performance of Africa have included low investment rates, flawed economic policies and institutions, ethnic fractionalization, and adverse geography.

Democracy and Growth: The Sub-Saharan African Case, 1960-1992

This article conducts a cross-national analysis of forty sub-Saharan African countries during the years 1960-1992. It examines the long-run relationship between political democracy and economic growth, taking advantage of the availability of large economic and political data sets. The conclusion from this study is that the economy grows faster under a regime that enjoys a higher level of institutionalized democracy. It is also found that a positive feedback relationship exists between democracy and growth; while democracy promotes growth, growth leads to a higher level of democratization. In addition, it is found that the duration of authoritarian rule decreases economic growth, while growth shortens the tenure of an autocratic government. Other factors that account for growth in sub-Saharan African countries include the initial size of the economy, human capital stocks, domestic investment share, and international trade.

Agricultural Growth in Sub-Saharan African Countries and China

Agriculture remains the dominant sector in the economies of most Sub-Saharan African countries. However, the experience of agricultural growth in the region stands in sharp contrast to the robust performance of agriculture in many Asian countries, particularly China. In a number of African countries, labor productivity has fallen and land productivity has not risen significantly. In China, on the other hand, land and labor productivities have increased steadily over the past two decades. An examination of factors underlying the contrasting experiences of China and countries in Sub-Saharan Africa reveals important differences in the institutional and policy environments affecting the use of new and profitable technologies to raise land and labor productivities.

Defense Spending and Economic Growth in Subsaharan Africa: Comment on Gyimah-Brempong

Gyimah-Brempong (1989) examined the effect of military spending on the economic growth of Subsaharan African countries using a simultaneous-equations model. He concluded that military expenditure had a negative impact on economic growth. However, the revision of his analysis shows that his reported results are weak and do not support his policy conclusions, because the calculated value of the defense burden/growth rate multiplier is not statistically significant.