Root Causes of African Underdevelopment

Sambit Bhattacharyya

Departmental Working Papers from The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics

Abstract: What are the root causes of Africa's current state of under-development? Is it the long history of slave trade, or the legacy of extractive colonial institutions, or the fallout of malaria? We investigate the relative contributions of these factors using an instrumental variable approach. The results show that malaria matters the most and all other factors are statistically insignificant. Malaria also negatively affects savings. Using a two period overlapping generation model we show that malaria impacts economic performance by increasing both mortality and morbidity. Increased mortality increases current household consumption and discourages savings. Increased morbidity adversely affects labour productivity. The combined impact is a slowdown of capital accumulation and economic growth.

Keywords: Poverty; Vulnerability; Food security; Cross-section data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N0 O11 O41 O57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Root Causes of African Underdevelopment (2009)
Working Paper: Root Causes of African Underdevelopment (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pas:papers:2008-16

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