IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hrv/faseco/12211559.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Lost Decades: Postindependence Performance in Latin America and Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Bates, Robert H.
  • Coatsworth, John H.
  • Williamson, Jeffrey G.

Abstract

Africa and Latin America secured independence from European colonial rule a century and half apart: most of Latin America by the 1820s and most of Africa by 1960. Despite the distance in time and space, they share important similarities. In each case independence was followed by political instability, violent conflict, and economic stagnation lasting for about a half-century. The parallels suggest that Africa might be exiting from a period of postimperial collapse and entering one of relative political stability and economic growth, as did Latin America almost two centuries ago.

Suggested Citation

  • Bates, Robert H. & Coatsworth, John H. & Williamson, Jeffrey G., 2007. "Lost Decades: Postindependence Performance in Latin America and Africa," Scholarly Articles 12211559, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hrv:faseco:12211559
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/12211559/S0022050707000447a.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elsa V. Artadi & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2003. "The Economic Tragedy of the XXth Century: Growth in Africa," NBER Working Papers 9865, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Irigoin, María Alejandra, 2003. "Macroeconomic aspects of Spanish American independence : the effects of fiscal and currency fragmentation, 1800s-1860s," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH wh034509, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    3. Williamson, Jeffrey G., 1999. "Real wages, inequality and globalization in latin america before 1940," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(S1), pages 101-142, March.
    4. Obstfeld,Maurice & Taylor,Alan M., 2005. "Global Capital Markets," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671798.
    5. Ndulu,Benno J. & O'Connell,Stephen A. & Bates,Robert H. & Collier,Paul & Soludo,Chukwuma C., 2009. "The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960–2000," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521127752.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2010. "Latin American Growth-Inequality Trade-Offs: The Impact of Insurgence and Independence," NBER Working Papers 15680, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Oleg Badunenko & Daniel Henderson & Romain Houssa, 2014. "Significant drivers of growth in Africa," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 339-354, December.
    3. Reinhart, Karmen & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. ""This time is different": panorama of eight centuries of financial crises," Ekonomicheskaya Politika / Economic Policy, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, vol. 1, pages 77-114, March.
    4. Rui Esteves & João Tovar Jalles, 2016. "Like Father Like Sons? The Cost of Sovereign Defaults in Reduced Credit to the Private Sector," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 48(7), pages 1515-1545, October.
    5. Arnelyn Abdon & Jesus Felipe, 2011. "The Product Space: What Does It Say About the Opportunities for Growth and Structural Transformation of Sub-Saharan Africa?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_670, Levy Economics Institute.
    6. repec:cuf:journl:y:2015:v:16:i:1:reinhart:rogoff is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2014. "This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 15(2), pages 215-268, November.
    8. Jeffrey Frankel, 2014. "Mauritius: African Success Story," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume IV: Sustainable Growth, pages 295-342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Mika Nieminen, 2017. "Patterns of international capital flows and their implications for developing countries," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2017-171, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    10. Guntram B. Wolff & Alexander Schulz, 2008. "Sovereign bond market integration: the euro, trading platforms and globalisation," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 332, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    11. Zuzana Brixiova & Qingwei Meng & Mthuli Ncube, 2015. "Can Intra-Regional Trade Act as a Global Shock Absorber in Africa?," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 16(3), pages 141-162, July.
    12. Maurice Obstfeld & Jay C. Shambaugh & Alan M. Taylor, 2005. "The Trilemma in History: Tradeoffs Among Exchange Rates, Monetary Policies, and Capital Mobility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(3), pages 423-438, August.
    13. Linda S Goldberg, 2009. "Understanding Banking Sector Globalization," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 56(1), pages 171-197, April.
    14. Guillermo Lezama & Henry Willebald, 2020. "Inequality in Pre‐Income Survey Times: A Methodological Proposal," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(4), pages 931-957, December.
    15. Kalemli-Özcan, Sebnem & Nikolsko–Rzhevskyy, Alex & Kwak, Jun Hee, 2020. "Does trade cause capital to flow? Evidence from historical rainfall," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    16. Azam, Jean-Paul, 2010. "A State is Born: Transport Infrastructure and Democracy in Somaliland," IDEI Working Papers 668, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    17. R Burger & S du Plessis, 2011. "Examining the Robustness of Competing Explanations of Slow Growth in African Countries," Studies in Economics and Econometrics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 21-47, December.
    18. Jonathan Temple & Huikang Ying & Patrick Carter, 2014. "Transfers and Transformations: Remittances, Foreign Aid, and Growth," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 14/649, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK, revised 02 Dec 2014.
    19. Michael A. Clemens & Claudio Montenegro & Lant Pritchett, 2016. "Bounding the Price Equivalent of Migration Barriers," CID Working Papers 316, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    20. Sabine Herrmann & Joern Kleinert, 2014. "Lucas Paradox and Allocation Puzzle - Is the euro area different?," Graz Economics Papers 2014-01, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    21. Richens, Peter, 2009. "The economic legacies of the ‘thin white line’: indirect rule and the comparative development of sub-Saharan Africa," Economic History Working Papers 27879, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:hrv:faseco:12211559. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Office for Scholarly Communication (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deharus.html .

    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.