Africa: Why Economists Get it Wrong, by Morten Jerven

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Notes

¹ See, for example, Levine and Renelt (1992) or Barro (1991).

² Recent studies have used instrumental variables to get around this. See, for example, Galiani and others (2014).

³ See, for example, Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) or Sokoloff and Engerman (2000).

⁴ Although it is difficult to know what per capita income was in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Africa, Pritchett (1997) argues that there is a lower bound of about $250 per capita. Pritchett (1997), therefore, argues the ratio of per capita income in the United States to the poorest countries in Africa increased from about 870% to 4,520% between 1870 and 1990.

⁵ As Easterly and others (1993) note, policies and country characteristics are more stable than long-run growth rates. Moreover, the institutional and geographic variables the historical growth literature favors are likely to be even more stable than the policy variables Easterly et al. (1993) consider.