Colonial Government, Social Conflict and State Involvement in Africa’s Open Economies: The Origins of the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board, 1939–46

Alence, Rod

doi:10.1017/s0021853701007952

Cited by 25 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…30 He explicitly referred in a footnote to Tinbergen (1958). 31 For further discussion on beginning of the Ghana cocoa marketing board see Alence (2001). 32 Recent assessments have tended to adopt a more critical stance towards the Ghana marketing board.…”

Section: Methodological Tenets Of Seidman and Green's Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Continental Visions: Ann Seidman, Reginald H. Green and the Economics of African Unity In 1960s Ghana

Serra

2014

SSRN Journal

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The paper presents the history of the contribution of two American economists to a radical cause: the establishment of a socialist and politically united Africa. The setting is 1960s Ghana which under Kwame Nkrumah, the man who led the country to independence from British colonial rule, emerged as the epicentre of this Pan-African vision. Ann Seidman and Reginald H. Green became, as members of the research team on 'The Economics of African Unity' established at the University of Ghana in 1963, the most sophisticated and systematic advocates of Nkrumah's economic argument for continental planning and political union. The paper argues that Green and Seidman's support for PanAfricanism was rooted in an attempt to question radically the applicability of mainstream economic theory to African conditions, and find an alternative framework to conceptualise African trade, institutions and economic integration. Ultimately the vision associated with Nkrumah and economists like Green and Seidman failed to gain any significant political legitimacy and ended in 1966 with Nkrumah's overthrow. Yet, it is argued that the story of the 'economics of African unity' is a useful departure point to deepen our understanding of the relationship between economics and political imagination in postcolonial Africa.JEL classification: B24, B29, B31, 020, P41.

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Section: Methodological Tenets Of Seidman and Green's Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Continental Visions: Ann Seidman, Reginald H. Green and the Economics of African Unity In 1960s Ghana

Serra

2014

SSRN Journal

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“…Older literature has analysed price stabilisation measures in specific sectors, particularly in the context of national marketing boards and international commodity agreements (ICAs) (for cocoa, see, e.g. Kofi 1976 ; Hecht 1983 ; Alence 2001 ; Losch 2002 ). These contributions demonstrate that commodity prices are not determined on abstract markets, but rather through different actors’ interactions and power relations in specific sectors—e.g.…”

Section: Commodity Prices Price-setting and Global Value Chainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Ghana, this also was related to resistance to the oligopsony of British traders and related local struggles (known as ‘cocoa holdups’). However, European traders’ interests were still entrenched in the new institutions (Alence 2001 ). While Ghana and Nigeria established marketing boards with direct interventions in physical trade, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon operated price stabilisation funds based on the French caisse systems, leaving physical handling to private actors (Kofi 1976 ; Gilbert 2009 ).…”

Section: Price-setting In Cocoa Global Value Chainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Price-Setting Power in Global Value Chains: The Cases of Price Stabilisation in the Cocoa Sectors in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana

Staritz

Tröster²,

Grumiller³

et al. 2022

Eur J Dev Res

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This paper calls for integrating price-setting power and related uneven exposure to price risks into the analysis of governance in global value chains (GVCs) as it adds to other power dimensions in producing unequal distributional outcomes. This is shown for the cocoa GVC, in which—unlike in today’s mostly liberalised market structures—the world’s top cocoa-producing countries, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, pursue price stabilisation measures. These measures address intra-seasonal producer price volatility, and recent collaboration has achieved a living-income differential on top of export prices, but such measures do not shield export and producer prices from inter-seasonal variations in world prices determined on commodity derivatives markets. Based on interviews with actors along the cocoa GVC, we argue that this is related to the price-setting power of ‘grinder-traders’ and the key role of financial hedging and trading on commodity derivatives markets in their business strategies. Financialisation processes have increased derivatives trading’s complexity and short-termism, accelerating consolidation among grinder-traders and making price stabilisation more challenging. Through their price stabilisation systems, Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana have maintained some price-setting power in the cocoa GVC, but largely remain ‘global price-takers’, with prices determined on derivatives markets and transmitted along the cocoa GVC through grinder-traders.

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“…47 Noting that the government-run Cocoa Marketing Board financed most of the government's budget through the compulsory purchase of the nation's cocoa harvest at below world-market prices, Lewis suggested that "the alternative is to rely, instead, to a considerable extent on foreign capital," specifically to establish a manufacturing base. 48 Here the Lebanese factored into the CPP's plans for industrial growth and development. As part of his vision of "African socialism" in Ghana, Nkrumah believed that Productive Aliens 105 shifting alien enterprise into the manufacturing sector would tie down the liquid assets of ostensibly successful trade diasporas including the Lebanese.…”

Section: Industrialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Productive Aliens: Economic Planning and the Lebanese in Ghana, c. 1930-1972

Malki

2013

Mashriq & Mahjar

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Drawing upon the Ghanaian experience, this article argues that alien immigrant populations in some African countries were channeled toward socio-economic niches by executive decree and legislative mandate dating to the late colonial period. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, British immigration restrictions and trade laws designated the Lebanese as economic agents charged with promoting commerce, while encumbering their political acceptance by restricting residency and naturalization. After independence, economic populism, competing Africanist ideologies, and claims to indigeneity all shaped the passage of laws and legislation that defined and restricted the position of middlemen. Ultimately, the failure of Lebanese political integration in Anglophone West Africa stemmed from the states' economically-functionalist approach towards immigrants and the ethnonationalist discourse on autochthony that isolated them. This enduring institutional and statutory legacy explains why the political incorporation of many immigrant groups in Africa remains incomplete.Productive Aliens 99 dominant minorities in particular, subsuming both African "strangers" and non-African "aliens."This article examines the operation of these categories in British West Africa and successor states, with an emphasis on Ghana. The term "stranger" was used in West Africa to denote any foreigner, whether non-African or African of distant provenance. Legally, the term "alien" referred to immigrants from outside the British Empire during the colonial period, and to any non-Ghanaian national (e.g., unnaturalized Nigerians, Burkinabes, Lebanese, etc.) after the declaration of the Ghanaian republic in 1960. 11 However, in common usage, "stranger" effectively described non-Ghanaian African foreigners, and "aliens" tended to be reserved for non-Africans. This distinction was partly a holdover from the colonial period, when Nigerians and other British West Africans were recognized along with Gold Coasters as imperial subjects, and partly the result of Kwame Nkrumah's deliberate attempt to foster Pan-African inclusivity among West African diasporic populations resident in Ghana. 12

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Colonial Government, Social Conflict and State Involvement in Africa’s Open Economies: The Origins of the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board, 1939–46

Cited by 25 publications

References 1 publication

Continental Visions: Ann Seidman, Reginald H. Green and the Economics of African Unity In 1960s Ghana

Continental Visions: Ann Seidman, Reginald H. Green and the Economics of African Unity In 1960s Ghana

Price-Setting Power in Global Value Chains: The Cases of Price Stabilisation in the Cocoa Sectors in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana

Productive Aliens: Economic Planning and the Lebanese in Ghana, c. 1930-1972

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