Sources of Slow Growth in African Economies

Sachs, Jeffrey D.; Warner, Andrew M.

doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.jae.a020932

Cited by 1,004 publications

(563 citation statements)

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“…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.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Nillesen

Verwimp

2010

SSRN Journal

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This paper challenges the idea that farmers revert to subsistence farming when confronted with violence from civil war. While there is an emerging macroeconomic consensus that wars are detrimental to development, we find contrasting microeconomic evidence. Using several rounds of (panel) data at the farm and community level, we find that farmers in Burundi who are confronted with civil war violence in their home communities increase export and cash crop growing activities, invest more in public goods and reveal higher levels subjective welfare evaluations. We interpret this in the light of similar recent micro-level evidence that points to post-traumatic growth effects after (civil) warfare. Our results are confirmed across specifications as well as in robustness analyses.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Nillesen

Verwimp

2010

SSRN Journal

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“…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.…”

Section: A Typology Approach To the Analysis Of Globalizationmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…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.…”

Section: Globalization Growth and Governancementioning

confidence: 99%

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

Round¹

2010

The Poor Under Globalization in Asia, Latin America, and Africa

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The last two decades has witnessed an increase in globalizing influences affecting most countries, Africa included. These influences have arisen partly as a result of domestic and international policies, such as trade policies, and partly as a result of general globalizing impulses, such as technological developments and enhanced communications. The single overarching objective of this paper is to outline the macro evidence on the extent to which globalization is taking place and poverty is reducing in Africa, and to consider this to both characteristics of the region (i.e., within the region) and relative to other global regions. It draws on some of the most recent evidence about the globalizing processes in various forms so as to try to determine the speed and extent of globalization in Africa. This helps to put into proper perspective the impact of globalization on poverty and inequality. It is essentially a partial and descriptive approach, at best indicative of associations, and stops short of attempting to identify, empirically, channels of influence and causal relationships.

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“…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.…”

Section: Data and Estimation Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%