Comparability of <scp>GDP</scp> estimates in <scp>S</scp>ub‐<scp>S</scp>aharan <scp>A</scp>frica: The effect of Revisions in Sources and Methods Since Structural Adjustment

Jerven, Morten

doi:10.1111/roiw.12006

Cited by 65 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Mathematically, tax_rel = tottax / (tottax+totnontax) 16 In recent years it has been increasingly recognised that GDP is substantially underestimated in many developing countries owing to infrequent GDP rebasing, with a resultant overestimation of tax and revenue measured as a share of GDP (Jerven 2013;Prichard et al 2014 Our primary dependent variable is democracy, which is constructed by employing the Polity2 measure of democracy from the Polity IV dataset, and normalising it to the range 0 to 100 (Marshall et al 2012). This follows the dominant trend in the literature, as the polity measure of procedural democracy is reliable and readily available, while democracy is a useful proxy for the broader quality of accountability and governance.…”

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confidence: 99%

Taxation, Non-Tax Revenue and Democracy: New Evidence Using New Cross-Country Data

Prichard

Salardi

Segal³

2014

SSRN Journal

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Taxation, Non-Tax Revenue and Democracy: New Evidence Using New Cross-Country Data

Prichard

Salardi

Segal³

2014

SSRN Journal

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“…In a series of articles, Morten Jerven recently highlighted the deficiencies of macroeconomic data, especially in the case of African economies (Jerven, 2013b(Jerven, ,a, 2011. The resulting book directed to a larger audience, "Poor Numbers" (Jerven, 2013c), has drawn considerable attention to the shortcomings of data collection.…”

Section: The Quality Of Macroeconomic Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Foreign Aid, Poor Data, and the Fragility of Macroeconomic Inference

Roger

2015

SSRN Journal

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may AbstractThe link between foreign aid and economic growth remains a controversial issue in the literature, and a large share of the disagreement could be explained by differences in the data employed. Using GDP data from three different versions of the Penn World Table and the World Development Indicators, I investigate the robustness of Juselius, Møller and Tarp (2014)'s (JMT) conclusions about long-run aid effectiveness. The analysis is carried out in two stages. First, I apply the same models as developed by JMT to the new datasets. Second, I re-specify the Cointegrated VAR models using the same criteria as JMT, but limit the analysis to the four most and least consistent countries respectively. The first exercise shows that results change in a significant manner in approximately 10 of the 36 countries examined. The second exercise shows that the if the models are re-specified for each country and dataset individually as a function of the data, this leads to more qualitative changes in the conclusions.JEL Classification: C32, F35, O11, O47

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“…8 The backward projection of Maddison's per capita GDP for 1950 with these volume indices increased the variance in income levels within both French West and Equatorial African countries. 9 The uncertainty about 1950 GDP levels in Sub-Saharan Africa no doubt increases the error margins of these conjectural estimates (Jerven 2012b). population.…”

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Output Per Head in Pre-Independence Africa: Quantitative Conjectures

Escosura

2012

Economic History of Developing Regions

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GDP figures for Africa are unreliable. More dependable information can be found in government expenditure and international trade records. These records, though, provide little insight into non-market output. In this paper an attempt is made to draw explicit conjectures on real output per head in preindependence Africa on the basis of trade data so that conjectures can be established about Africa's long-run growth. Two alternative approaches are considered. One estimates per capita GDP by assuming no increase in output per head outside the tradable sector, for which the purchasing power of per capita exports is accepted as a proxy. Another approach establishes an econometric association between real per capita GDP and the income terms of trade per head for and, on the basis of the prediction equation's parameters and the values of the RHS variables, infers real output per head for . Trends in real output per head are then drawn for Africa (and its main regions). By comparing these trends with those from other developing regions, some conjectures about Africa's relative position over time are put forward. It emerges that economic growth started earlier than usually assumed and there is continuity in growth before and after colonial independence. SubSaharan Africa's retardation is a gradual process, as growing and falling behind took place simultaneously. But it is in the period 1975-1995 when the worst setback in modern Africa's history took place.Keywords: GDP, long-run growth, pre-independence Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa JEL Classification: E01; N17; O47; O55 More dependable information can be found in government expenditure and international trade records. These records, though, provide little insight into non-market output. In this paper an attempt is made to draw explicit conjectures on real output per head in pre-independence Africa on the basis of trade data so that conjectures can be established about Africa's long-run growth. Two alternative approaches are considered. One estimates per capita GDP by assuming no increase in output per head outside the tradable sector, for which the purchasing power of per capita exports is accepted as a proxy. Another approach establishes an econometric association between real per capita GDP and the income terms of trade per head for and, on the basis of the prediction equation's parameters and the values of the RHS variables, infers real output per head for . Trends in real output per head are then drawn for Africa (and its main regions). By comparing these trends with those from other developing regions, some conjectures about Africa's relative position over time are put forward. It emerges that economic growth started earlier than usually assumed and there is continuity in growth before and after colonial independence. Sub-Saharan Africa's retardation is a gradual process, as growing and falling behind took place simultaneously. But it is in the period 1975-1995 when the worst setback in modern Africa's history took place.

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Comparability of GDP estimates in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The effect of Revisions in Sources and Methods Since Structural Adjustment

Cited by 65 publications

References 29 publications

Taxation, Non-Tax Revenue and Democracy: New Evidence Using New Cross-Country Data

Taxation, Non-Tax Revenue and Democracy: New Evidence Using New Cross-Country Data

Foreign Aid, Poor Data, and the Fragility of Macroeconomic Inference

Output Per Head in Pre-Independence Africa: Quantitative Conjectures

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