Notwithstanding the challenges involved in forming reasonable counterfactuals for episodes such as colonisation or enslavement, research moved decisively from cross-country correlations to within-country analyses, which helped make progress on improving causal inference. This more evolutionary approach to economic history has led to a fruitful dialogue between economics and the other social sciences albeit one not without tension.įourth, influenced by the ‘credibility revolution’ that started in labour economics in the 1990s and expanded to micro-development in the 2000s, research on economic growth and long-term development embraced the desire to identify causal effects – a far more challenging objective when working at macro scale relative to micro scale. They examined, for example, the origins and the implications of the vast differences in social capital, civicism, cultural preferences, and values.
Visious cyndicate drivers#
Third, the studies began moving beyond purely economic outcomes and drivers of development. For example, applied research started scrutinising influential ideas proposed by historians, political scientists, sociologists, and even cultural anthropologists. Second, the new economics research became more interdisciplinary. The new economic history approach departs greatly from prevailing thinking in important ways.įirst, scholars realised that ill-conceived, post-independence urban-rural agriculture and trade policies, authoritarianism, conflict, corruption, and lack of structural transformation (the foci of pre-2000 studies) often had deep roots stemming from colonial extraction, enslavement, the artificial design of country borders, underinvestment, and cash-crop specialisation during colonisation. But, since the 2000s, a vibrant stream of research on African political economy and economic history has emerged. In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, only a handful of papers were published outside specialised outlets. Economics research has followed a similar train. A few years later, in 2016, the magazine described it in more nuanced terms as a land of “1.2 billion opportunities” – a reference to the potential market that its huge population constituted. A decade later, after strong growth and institutional advancement, it renamed it “the hopeful continent”. In 2000, The Economist called Africa “the hopeless continent”. Pessimists point to Africa’s dark past, including the atrocities and exploitation during colonisation, and the slave trades.
However, many are less optimistic, concerned about misgovernance, conflict, weak state capacity, corruption and poor infrastructure. Some economists, finance professionals, multinational executives, global entrepreneurs, and businesspeople are bullish, as there are investment opportunities in infrastructure, manufacturing, and technology, coupled with a young population that is increasingly more educated and confident. Views about Africa are, were, and most likely will continue to be highly polarising.
0 kommentar(er)
