Reading Economics: The Role of Mainstream Economics in International Development Studies Today (SWP 24)

What is the role of the economics discipline in teaching and studying international development today? This paper draws upon experiences of teaching and reading economics with students in interdisciplinary international development studies. The main conclusion is that economic literacy is a key ingredient in development studies. This paper discusses different interpretations of what economic literacy may entail and why this literacy is important. It concludes by suggesting a number of paths to achieve the necessary level of understanding

Controversy, Facts and Assumptions: Lessons from Estimating Long Term Growth in Nigeria, 1900–2007 (SWP 13)

This article contributes to the debates surrounding ‘New African Economic History’ by exploring the feasibility of constructing a time series of economic growth in Nigeria spanning the 20th century. Currently most datasets for African economies only go back to 1960. The sources for their creation exist, but these valuable colonial data remain underutilized. This is a first exploratory paper in a project aiming to create measures of economic growth through the 20th century for a sample of African economies. The paper offers a systematic discussion of the different available datasets on population, agricultural production and income for the country. It finds that the existing data, often presented as facts, are more accurately described as projections based on assumptions. If these assumptions are already made in the production of the data, this precludes empirical testing of important questions. The main lesson is that any African economic history investigation must both begin and end with a critical analysis of the quantitative data, and must further be supported by careful qualitative evaluation

The Political Economy of Agricultural Statistics: Evidence from India, Nigeria and Malawi (SWP 18)

The political economy of agricultural policies – why certain interventions may be preferred by political leaders rather than others – is well recognized. This paper explores a perspective previously neglected: the political economy of the production of agricultural output data. In developing economies the data on agricultural production are weak. Because these data are assembled using competing methods and assumptions, the final series are subject to political pressure. This paper draws on debates on the evidence of a Green Revolution in India, the arguments on effect of withdrawing fertilizer subsidies during Structural Adjustment in Nigeria, and finally the paper presents new data on the effect of crop data subsidies in Malawi. The recent agricultural census (2006/2007) indicates a maize output of 2.1 million tonnes, compared to the previously widely circulated figures of 3.4 million tonnes. The paper suggests that ‘data’ are themselves a product of agricultural policies

African Growth Recurring: An Economic History Perspective on African Growth Episodes, 1690–2010 (SWP 4)

Africa has not suffered a chronic failure of growth. African growth has been recurring. This paper reviews some growth spurts to substantiate that claim. The proximate cause of low income in Africa is the sequence of boom and bust. This significantly reorients the central research question—away from a search for the root causes of African underdevelopment and towards explaining causes and effects of growth and decline. The growth spurts are approached as local responses to a global demand for African produced commodities. It is argued that these supply responses involved more than a reallocation of land and labour; they entailed investment and institutional change. It is precisely because these periods of rapid economic change and accumulation caused important social and organizational changes that they cannot be ignored, as they have tended to be in the search for a root cause of chronic failure

Africa: Why economists get it wrong. Morten Jerven and revisionism.

Macroeconomists working on Africa have got their analysis very wrong, argues Morten Jerven. In his new book, Africa: Why Economists get it wrong, Jerven argues that the study of Africa relies on flawed narratives and data. He questions many of the presuppositions made by popular economists to provide a revisionist account of African economic history

Poor Numbers: How we are misled by African development statistics and what to do about it

Morten Jerven asks: What do we know about income and growth in sub-Saharan Africa? The answer is: much less than we like to think. The data are unreliable and potentially seriously misleading. The question is of great importance. Economic growth rates or per capita income estimates are commonly used in statements about development in Africa

Users and Producers of African Income: Measuring the Progress of African Economies (SWP 7)

This article traces how African incomes have been measured through history. There has been a conflict of aims between producers and users of the national income estimates. Politicians and international organisations wish income measures to reflect current political and economic priorities and achievements. Thus, the importance given to markets, the state and peasants in the estimates varies through time and space. Meanwhile, statisticians aim to produce a measure that best reflects the economy given the available data and definitions at any time. Scholars would prefer a measure that is consistent through time and space, so as to analyze and compare ‘progress’, but they cannot agree on how ‘progress’ is best defined. The result is not an objective measure, but rather an expression of development priorities determined by changes in the political economy. The article provides a much needed study of the ability of the statistical offices to independently and regularly provide income statistics. These data are of crucial importance, as they enter the public domain in policy evaluations, political debates and assessments of progress towards lofty goals such as the Millennium Development Goals

African economic growth reconsidered: measurement and performance in east-central Africa, 1965-1995

Lack of economic growth has overwhelmingly been the focus of studies of the economic history of post-colonial Africa. Ironically, this has diverted attention from explaining the process of economic growth. Explaining African economic growth as it happened, with attention to episodes of growth and changes in incentive structures, is much more demanding of the African growth evidence. There are serious validity and reliability issues with the Africa data. This stands in contrast with the widespread use of the data as functional evidence for economic analysis. The thesis sheds new light on both methodological and substantive issues through a comparative study of the national accounting methodologies in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. It is found that baseline estimates and growth estimation methodologies are different across countries, and that these to an extent determine differences in measured growth, and therefore might influence conclusions in the literature. The main sources of growth evidence are compared with the national accounts data. It is shown that these different sources do not cohere. These data quality issues are serious enough to compromise research on post-colonial African economic history unless proper care is taken. The final part of the thesis analyses the growth experiences of these four countries on the basis of the national accounts data. At face value the stylised facts about averaged growth rates match the idealised typologies of African economies based on their policy and institutional frameworks. It is shown, however, that when we examine the changes in economic growth rates during the period, and the sources of those changes, the explanations from the case studies do not cohere with the orthodox narrative. While there are clear differences in the growth performance of the countries, these differences in growth rates were determined by events over which the policy makers and the institutional framework could have only limited influence. The case studies underline the importance of looking beyond the averaged aggregate growth rates, because of, rather than despite, the issues of data quality