Sources of Slow Growth in African Economies

A Phoenix in Flames? Portfolio Choice and Violence in Civil War in Rural Burundi

“…Sub-Saharan Africa is a prominent example as the continent has seen more incidents of wars, weather and health crises than anywhere else in the world. These phenomena are considered of key importance to explain Africa's slow economic performance in the past decades, together with, or possibly as a result of, other, frequently noted factors in the literature, including ethnic fragmentation (Easterley and Levine, 1997), adverse geographic conditions (Sachs and Warner, 1997), (pre)colonial legacies (Bertocchi and Canova, 2002;Nunn, 2004) and underdeveloped institutions Acemoglu et al, 2001). Shocks in developing countries, not necessarily confined to the African continent, often result in collateral damage including loss of livestock or land, or a decline in their respective values.…”

Globalization, Growth, Inequality, and Poverty in Africa: A Macroeconomic Perspective

“…A second analysis is shown in Table 6 with respect to resource intensity levels and geographical aspects, as suggested by Sachs and Warner (1997) and Collier and Gunning (1999). 13 Again, the results reveal expected outcomes.…”

“…Many authors now attribute at least part of Africa's poor growth performance to poor governance, weak or inappropriate institutions, and continuing conflict (Sachs and Warner 1997;and Bigsten and Durevall 2003), 15 the combination of which creates impediments to the accumulation of capital and the necessary structural change. Continuing the theme of exploring patterns and associations between key variables measured at the country level, the first relationship considered is between the change in a country's governance and growth in GDP per capita.…”

“…They report on four well-known studies that include Africa dummies; the studies are by Barro and Lee (1994), Easterly and Levine (1997), Sachs and Warner (1997) and Collier and Gunning (1999). The periods covered are closely comparable, predominantly covering the 1960s to the 1980s.…”

Can Africa Reduce Poverty by Half by 2015?

“…5 The sustainability of growth and persistence of poverty There is abundant empirical research trying to explain Africa's poor economic performance. A wide range of factors have been identified, from macroeconomic instability (caused by external or domestic shocks) to a set of initial conditions, such as geography (Sachs and Warner, 1997), ethnic fractionalisation and conflict (Collier and Hoeffler, 1998), 'bad' policies (Sachs and Warner, 1997;Easterly, 2000), poor governance (Barro, 1997), weak institutions (Acemoglu et al, 2003;Rodrik et al, 2002), and low human capital. Recently, Sachs et al (2004) have argued that there are three types of poverty traps in Africa: the savings trap, the demographic trap, and the low capital-threshold trap.…”