Africa: Why Economists Get It Wrong

✍ Scribed by Jerven, Morten

• Publisher: Zed Books
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 172
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Not so long ago, Africa was being described as the ‘Hopeless Continent’. Recently, though, talk has turned to ‘Africa Rising’, with enthusiastic voices exclaiming the potential for economic growth across many of its countries. What, then, is the truth behind Africa’s growth, or lack of it?

InIs Africa Rising?, Morten Jerven fundamentally reframes the debate, challenging mainstream accounts of African economic history. Whilst for the past two decades experts have focused on explaining why there has been a ‘chronic failure of growth’ in Africa, Jerven shows that most African economies have been growing at a rapid pace since the mid-90s. In addition, African economies grew rapidly in the 50s, the 1960s, and even into the 1970s. Thus, African states were dismissed as incapable of development based largely on observations made during the 1980s and early 1990s. The result has been misguided analysis, and few practical lessons learned.

An essential account of the real impact economic growth has had on Africa, and what it means for the continent’s future.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Cover......Page 1
African Arguments......Page 2
About the Author ......Page 5
Title Page ......Page 6
Copyright ......Page 7
Contents ......Page 8
Tables and Figures ......Page 9
Acknowledgments ......Page 10
Introduction ......Page 12
From Explaining Slow Growth to Explaining Low Income ......Page 15
How Economists Have Misunderstood Growth in Africa ......Page 17
1: Misunderstanding Economic Growth in Africa......Page 23
Correlation Is Not Causation ......Page 26
Garbage In, Garbage Out......Page 27
The African Dummy Variable ......Page 31
Misrepresenting the African Economic Growth Record ......Page 36
The Subtraction Approach ......Page 41
Aid Dependency ......Page 44
Deficient Public Services ......Page 46
Bad Policies ......Page 47
Bad Governance ......Page 50
A Leap of Faith ......Page 54
2: Trapped in History?......Page 56
The Historical Evidence of Growth ......Page 57
Explaining Variation in Income ‘Today’......Page 60
Root Causes of African Underdevelopment ......Page 67
Initial Conditions: Bad Geography and Wrong Technology ......Page 70
Ethnicity ......Page 73
Settlers and Institutions ......Page 76
‘Causal History’ or ‘Compression of History’?......Page 79
Ceteris Paribus: History Matters ......Page 83
3: African Growth Recurring......Page 85
The Political Economy of Episodic Growth in Africa ......Page 87
The Importance of Economic Growth ......Page 89
From Slavery to Cash Crops: Growth in Precolonial and Colonial Africa ......Page 91
Growth in Africa Since 1950 ......Page 97
Prospects for Growth ......Page 99
World Markets ......Page 100
Political Conditions ......Page 104
The Factors of Production ......Page 108
Poverty, Inequality and Economic Growth: Some Precautions ......Page 111
Benchmark Years ......Page 114
How Much Do We Know About Income and Growth in Africa? ......Page 116
Correlates of Growth ......Page 123
Interpreting the Growth Evidence ......Page 129
The Politics of African Economic Statistics ......Page 132
How We are Misled by Mainstream Economics......Page 135
Learning from History ......Page 139
Getting African Economies Right ......Page 141
Notes ......Page 144
Bibliography ......Page 151
Index ......Page 166
Back Cover......Page 172

✦ Subjects

Cultural;Africa;Economics;Nonfiction