Growth in Africa Under Peace and Market Reforms

Economic stagnation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has led several economists to question the region’s ability to attain sustained economic growth, some of them arguing for the need to shift away from natural resource - based exports. Yet, we find that low growth has not been common to all SSA countries and that those that achieved political stability and significantly liberalized their economies experienced high growth in income per capita, as high as ASEAN-5 countries. This group of SSA countries attained high growth while maintaining their specialization in natural resource exports. Our analysis also rejects the hypothesis of reverse causality: that good growth performance allowed countries to attain political stability or liberalize their economies.Structural adjustment;Economic growth;Economic reforms;Natural resources;economic liberalization, terms of trade, growth rates, growth rate, commodity prices, gdp growth, gdp per capita, current account balance, exporting countries, trade growth, trade liberalization, trade openness, real gdp, capital formation, gross capital formation, low trade, world economy, international trade, growth in income per capita, trade flows, political economy, pro-poor growth, commodity exporters, barriers to entry, prudential supervision, income distribution, commercial policy, competitive industry, growth diagnostics, current account deficit, balance of payments crises, poverty alleviation, balance of payments, economic convergence, competitive market, oil prices