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Did the Cold War Produce Development Clusters in Africa?

Author

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  • Weber, Shlomo
  • Castaneda Dower, Paul
  • Gokmen, Gunes
  • Le Breton, Michel

Abstract

This paper examines the lasting impact of the alignment of African countries during the Cold War on modern economic development. We show that the division of the continent into two blocs (East/West) led to two clusters of development outcomes that reflect the Cold War’s ideological divide. To determine alignment, we introduce a non-cooperative game of social interactions between African countries, where every country chooses one of two existing blocs based on its predetermined bilateral similarities with other members of the bloc. We show the existence of a strong Nash equilibrium in our game and apply the celebrated MaxCut method to identify such a partition. We validate the alignment by confirming that it predicts UN General Assembly voting patterns during the Cold War. Our approach, linking global political interdependence to distinct development paths in Africa, extracts from history a micro-founded, exogenous treatment, while allowing for an endogenous, process-oriented view of historical events.

Suggested Citation

  • Weber, Shlomo & Castaneda Dower, Paul & Gokmen, Gunes & Le Breton, Michel, 2021. "Did the Cold War Produce Development Clusters in Africa?," CEPR Discussion Papers 15810, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15810
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Fuda Ma & Jin-Kao Hao, 2017. "A multiple search operator heuristic for the max-k-cut problem," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 248(1), pages 365-403, January.
    2. Vilmar Jefté Rodrigues de Sousa & Miguel F. Anjos & Sébastien Le Digabel, 2019. "Improving the linear relaxation of maximum k-cut with semidefinite-based constraints," EURO Journal on Computational Optimization, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 7(2), pages 123-151, June.
    3. Laura Palagi & Veronica Piccialli & Franz Rendl & Giovanni Rinaldi & Angelika Wiegele, 2012. "Computational Approaches to Max-Cut," International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, in: Miguel F. Anjos & Jean B. Lasserre (ed.), Handbook on Semidefinite, Conic and Polynomial Optimization, chapter 0, pages 821-847, Springer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Cold war; Political alliances; Africa; Blocs; Development clusters; Strong nash equilibrium; Landscape theory;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C62 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • F54 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - Colonialism; Imperialism; Postcolonialism
    • F55 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Institutional Arrangements
    • N47 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Africa; Oceania
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries
    • Y10 - Miscellaneous Categories - - Data: Tables and Charts - - - Data: Tables and Charts

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