Intertemporal Syndromes: Redistribution from the Future to the Present..

Abstract

This chapter focuses on a particular type of policy failure, namely the sacrifice of future income for present gain. All societies and their governments face a trade-off between present and future consumption. Choices become sufficiently erroneous to be seen as a 'syndrome' if governments prioritize current spending to such an extent that future consumption is actually lower than current consumption. Africa's intertemporal syndromes fall into two groups, unsustainable booms in public spending, and looting of assets. Bouts of unsustainable public spending were usually, although not invariably triggered by booms in revenues from natural resource rents. These were often amplified by unsustainable debt accumulation. Looting of assets occasionally took the form of dispossession of private assets, but more commonly the target was publicly owned assets. We include within our discussion of looting those episodes in which growth-reducing strategies such as capital flight were induced by an anticipation of looting.