Determinants of the Recent Growth Surge in Africa : What Changed since mid - 1990 s ?

Abstract

Growth performance of African countries since their independence in the late 1950s until mid-1990s is qualified by many scholars as a tragedy. Geography, ethnic fractionalization, conflicts and wars, bad policies, predatory elites, and many other phenomena were the factors presumed to explain the poor or catastrophic growth performance of the bulk of African countries. Fortunately, a revival of the economic growth in the majority of African countries is observed since mid-1990s. Identification of the factors that are instrumental of this growth's surge is of prime importance for policy makers. It is so because growth is the condition, even not sufficient one, to poverty reduction and improvement of standards of life in Africa. In spite of the structural differences between African countries, many factors affect their economies in the same manner. One major result of our paper is that contrary to what is the common belief in the 1970s, 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, investment was positively linked to growth in African countries in the period