IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jintdv/v23y2011i2p288-307.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The quest for the African dummy: explaining African post‐colonial economic performance revisited

Author

Listed:
  • Morten Jerven

Abstract

Cross-sectional studies of growth in post‐colonial Africa have overwhelmingly focussed on explaining the failure of growth in Africa. This prompting stylised fact has its qualifications and when these are taken into consideration the explanations of African economic growth appear incoherent. The notion of a chronic African growth failure has diverted attention from the process of economic growth and left important questions unaddressed. The quest for the African dummy has delivered transferable conclusions with a strong impact on the writing of African economic history. This critical survey of the literature argues that African economic performance needs to be evaluated from a different perspective. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Morten Jerven, 2011. "The quest for the African dummy: explaining African post‐colonial economic performance revisited," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(2), pages 288-307, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:23:y:2011:i:2:p:288-307
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/jid.1603
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Simplice A. Asongu & Oasis Kodila†Tedika, 2017. "Is Poverty in the African DNA (Gene)?," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 85(4), pages 533-552, December.
    2. Simplice A. Asongu & Paul N. Acha-Anyi, 2020. "A survey on the Washington Consensus and the Beijing Model: reconciling development perspectives," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 67(2), pages 111-129, June.
    3. Morten Jerven, 2014. "African Growth Miracle or Statistical Tragedy?: Interpreting Trends in the Data Over the Past Two Decades," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-114, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    4. Kodila-Tedika , Oasis, 2014. "Forget your gods: African evidence on the relation between state capacity and cognitive ability of leading politicians," European Economic Letters, European Economics Letters Group, vol. 3(1), pages 7-11.
    5. Jerven, Morten, 2014. "African growth miracle or statistical tragedy? Interpreting trends in the data over the past two decades," WIDER Working Paper Series 114, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    6. Asongu, Simplice, 2015. "Rational Asymmetric Development: Transfer Mispricing and Sub-Saharan Africa’s Extreme Poverty Tragedy," MPRA Paper 71175, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Simplice Asongu, 2015. "Rational Asymmetric Development: Transfer Pricing and Sub-Saharan Africa’s Extreme Poverty Tragedy," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 15/017, African Governance and Development Institute..
    8. Antonio Rodríguez Andrés & Abraham Otero & Voxi Heinrich Amavilah, 2022. "Knowledge economy classification in African countries: A model-based clustering approach," Information Technology for Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(2), pages 372-396, April.
    9. Jerven , Morten & Austin , Gareth & Green, Erik & Uche , Chibuike & Frankema , Ewout & Fourie , Johan & Inikori , Joseph & Moradi , Alexander & Hillbom , Ellen, 2012. "Moving Forward in African Economic History: Bridging the Gap Between Methods and Sources," African Economic History Working Paper 1/2012, African Economic History Network.
    10. Oasis Kodila-Tedika & Simplice Asongu & Matthias Cinyabuguma, 2016. "The White Man’s Burden: On the Effect of African Resistance to European Domination," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 16/016, African Governance and Development Institute..
    11. Oasis Kodila-Tedika & Simplice A. Asongu & Matthias Cinyabuguma, 2016. "The White Man’s Burden: On the Effect of African Resistance to European Domination," Research Africa Network Working Papers 16/016, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    12. Simplice A. Asongu, 2015. "Rational Asymmetric Development: Transfer Mispricing and Sub-Saharan Africa’s Extreme Poverty Tragedy," Research Africa Network Working Papers 15/054, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    13. Morten Jerven, 2014. "A West African experiment: constructing a GDP series for colonial Ghana, 1891–1950," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(4), pages 964-992, November.
    14. Leo de Haan, 2010. "Perspectives on African Studies and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," Africa Spectrum, Institute of African Affairs, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, vol. 45(1), pages 95-116.
    15. Simplice A. Asongu, 2015. "Rational Asymmetric Development: Transfer Pricing and Sub-Saharan Africa’s Extreme Poverty Tragedy," Research Africa Network Working Papers 15/017, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    16. Asongu, Simplice A & Nwachukwu, Jacinta C., 2016. "Unjust Enrichment from Official Corruption in Africa: Theory and Model on how Lenders have benefited," MPRA Paper 75416, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Arkebe Oqubay, 2020. "Africa’s Economic Transformation and the Future of EU-Africa Cooperation," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 21(02), pages 3-10, July.
    18. Gareth Austin & Ewout Frankema & Ewout Morten Jerven, 2015. "Patterns of Manufacturing Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: From Colonization to the Present," Working Papers 0071, Utrecht University, Centre for Global Economic History.
    19. Amavilah, Voxi Heinrich, 2018. "Endogenous constraints, coefficients of economic distance, and economic performance of African countries – An exploratory essay," MPRA Paper 90065, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Florian Schaefer & Girum Abebe, 2015. "The case for industrial policy and its application in the Ethiopian cut flower sector," Working Papers 012, Policy Studies Institute.
    21. Fenske, James, 2010. "Institutions in African history and development: A review essay," MPRA Paper 23120, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Martínez Ibáñez, Oscar & Tadei, Federico, 2020. "The Integration of West Africa in the Global Economy, 1842-1938," Working Papers 2072/417678, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    23. Bezemer, Dirk & Bolt, Jutta & Lensink, Robert, 2014. "Slavery, Statehood, and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 148-163.
    24. Andersson, Jens, 2018. "Tax Stabilisation, Trade and Political Transitions in Francophone West Africa over 120 Years," African Economic History Working Paper 41/2018, African Economic History Network.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:23:y:2011:i:2:p:288-307. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.