TY  - JOUR
AU  - Artadi,Elsa V.
AU  - Sala-i-Martin,Xavier
TI  - The Economic Tragedy of the XXth Century: Growth in Africa
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9865
PY  - 2003
Y2  - July 2003
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9865
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9865.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Elsa Artadi
Elsa Vila-Artadi
IGIER - Universita Bocconi
Via Salasco, 5
Milano 20136
ITALY
Tel: +393473943494
E-Mail: no email available

Xavier Sala-i-Martin
Department of Economics
Columbia University
420 West 118th Street, 1005
New York, NY 10027
Tel: 212/854-7055
Fax: 212/854-8059
E-Mail: xs23@columbia.edu
AB  - The dismal growth performance of Africa is the worst economic tragedy of the XXth century. We document the evolution of per capita GDP for the continent as a whole and for subset of countries south of the Sahara desert. We document the worsening of various income inequality indexes and we estimate poverty rates and headcounts. We then analyze some of the central robust determinants of economic growth reported by Sala-i-Martin, Doppelhofer and Miller (2003) and project the annual growth rates Africa would have enjoyed if these key determinants had taken OECD rather than African values. Expensive investment goods, low levels of education, poor health, adverse geography, closed economies, too much public expenditure and too many military conflicts are seen as key explanations of the economic tragedy.
ER  -