The optimal way of using the proceeds from mineral discoveries continues to elude many developing countries. Because such discoveries can fuel rapid economic growth, one of the key challenges that emerge is...
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Year: 2020
Scholars, opinion makers, and journalists hold polarizing views on Africa's development prospects. Likewise, professionals and global investors appear either bearish or bullish on Africa's economic potential. These diverging views stem from how...
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In 2016, the average tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) was 26.15 percent for OECD countries, but only 15.47 percent for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Some scholars attribute SSA...
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The African Long-term Inequality Trends, AFLIT, is a new research network promoting interdisciplinary and collaborative research on historical inequality in Africa. It consists of scholars based at Lund University, Wageningen University, University...
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In the 1960s, one of Africa’s economic and political predicaments was thought to be its overdeveloped public sector elite, which dwarfed the few members of a genuinely African commercial elite. Scholars argued...
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Introduction Analyzing post-slavery labour markets in sub-Saharan Africa, economic historians have stressed the abundance of land relative to labour (e.g. Austin 2019). In such conditions, if an employer wanted prospective labourers to...
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Currently Africa, accounting in May 2020 for only 0.8% of confirmed cases and 0.6% of deaths worldwide, is marginal to global analysis of coronavirus. This situation seems likely to change, given the...
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Note: The original version of this blog post was published by African Arguments - Debating Ideas on 22/04/2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has reached Africa later than elsewhere, but it is clear...
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Long-run Effects of Forced Resettlement Under Apartheid South Africa's minority white population elected the Afrikaner-led National Party in 1948, marking the official start of the apartheid regime that would be in power...
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The richness and professionalism of the Senegalese national archives has long been acknowledged by historians of West Africa. Unlike several other countries in West Africa, where political upheaval or civil war have...
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Professor Antony Hopkins, your revised, 2nd edition of An Economic History of West Africa (Routledge, 2019) was published this autumn. Why do you think this book has stood the test of time,...
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