Greening Africa? Technologies, endowments and the latecomer effect

Paul Collier and Anthony Venables

No 2012-06, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: Africa is well endowed with potential for hydro and solar power, but its other endowments – shortages of capital, skills, and governance capacity – make most of the green options relatively expensive, while its abundance of hydro-carbons makes fossil fuels relatively cheap. Current power shortages make expansion of power capacity a priority. Africa’s endowments, and the consequent scarcities and relative prices, are not immutable and can be changed to bring opportunity costs in Africa closer to those in the rest of the world. The international community can support by increasing Africa’s supply of the scarce factors of capital, skills, and governance.

Keywords: Africa; climate change; energy; renewable; leapfrog; latecomer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O55 Q40 Q5 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-ene, nep-env and nep-res
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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Journal Article: Greening Africa? Technologies, endowments and the latecomer effect (2012)
Working Paper: Greening Africa? Technologies, endowments and the latecomer effect (2012)
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