Stress-testing Africa's recent growth and poverty performance

Shantayanan Devarajan, Delfin Go, Maryla Maliszewska, Israel Osorio-Rodarte and Hans Timmer
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Israel Osorio Rodarte

No 6517, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: After an impressive acceleration in growth and poverty reduction since the mid-1990s, many African countries continue to register robust growth in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Will this growth persist, given the tepid recovery in developed countries, numerous weather shocks, and civil conflicts in Africa? This paper"stress tests"African economies. The findings indicate that Africa's long-term growth is fairly impervious to a prolonged recession in high-income countries. Growth is, however, much more sensitive to a disruption of capital flows to the region, and to internal shocks, such as civil conflict and drought, even if the latter follow historical patterns. The broad policy implication is that with proper domestic production conditions African countries can sustain robust long-term growth. Because of the economic dominance of the agriculture sector and the share of food in household budgets, countries will need to increase the resilience of agriculture and protect it from unfavorable climate change impacts, such as drought. As in the past, civil conflicts and violence will pose by far the greatest threat to Africa's performance.

Keywords: Economic Theory&Research; Emerging Markets; Rural Poverty Reduction; Achieving Shared Growth; Climate Change Economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-06-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dem, nep-dev and nep-fdg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Stress-testing Africa's recent growth and poverty performance (2015)
Working Paper: Stress-testing Africa's recent growth and poverty performance (2013)
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