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Did the Cold War Produce Development Clusters in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Michel Le Breton

    (TSE-R - Toulouse School of Economics - UT Capitole - Université Toulouse Capitole - Comue de Toulouse - Communauté d'universités et établissements de Toulouse - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Paul Castañeda Dower

    (Unknown)

  • Gunes Gokmen

    (Unknown)

  • Шломо Вебер

    (Unknown)

Abstract

We examine the lasting impact of Cold War alignment on African development. To overcome the empirical challenge of ambiguous and interdependent international alliances during the Cold War, we introduce a non-cooperative game of social interactions. Using pre-determined, country-level characteristics to construct payoffs, we identify a unique two-bloc equilibrium partition of the continent. We then assign bloc alignments based on how the partition predicts UN voting patterns. Our empirical results indicate no income differences today between the Western and the Eastern blocs. However, their development paths reflect Cold War ideologies: Western-aligned African countries have greater inequality, financial development, and democracy, but lesser infrastructure, compared to Eastern-aligned ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Michel Le Breton & Paul Castañeda Dower & Gunes Gokmen & Шломо Вебер, 2026. "Did the Cold War Produce Development Clusters in Africa," Post-Print hal-05573607, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05573607
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2026.103776
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05573607v1
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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.
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