ISBN : 9780199687114
For a long time, economic research on Africa was not seen as a profitable venture intellectually or professionally-few researchers in top-ranked institutions around the world chose to become experts in the field. This was understandable: the reputation of Africa-centered economic research was not enhanced by the well-known limitations of economic data across the continent. Moreover, development economics itself was not always fashionable, and the broader discipline of economics has had its ups and downs, and has been undergoing a major identity crisis because it failed to predict the Great Recession. Times have changed: many leading researchers-including a few Nobel laureates-have taken the subject of Africa and economics seriously enough to devote their expertise and creativity to it. They have been amply rewarded: the richness, complexities, and subtleties of African societies, civilizations, rationalities, and ways of living, have helped renew the humanities and the social sciences-and economics in particular-to the point that the continent has become the next major intellectual frontier to researchers from around the world. In collecting some of the most authoritative statements about the science of economics and its concepts in the African context, this handbook (the first of two volumes) opens up the diverse acuity of commentary on exciting topics, and in the process challenges and stimulates the quest for knowledge. Wide-ranging in its scope, themes, language, and approaches, this volume explores, examines, and assesses economic thinking on Africa, and Africa's contribution to the discipline. The editors bring a set of powerful resources to this endeavor, most notably a team of internationally-renowned economists whose diverse viewpoints are complemented by the perspectives of philosophers, political scientists, and anthropologists. The set of analyses and reflections presented here try to endow each subject with depth and discovery.
Introduction: Africa, the Next Intellectual Frontier
PART I: CONCEPTS
1. Economics as an African Science: An Epistemological Analysis
2. Households and Income in Africa
3. Transformation of African Farm-cum-Family Structures
4. The Economics of Marriage in North Africa: A Unifying Theoretical Framework
5. The Theory of the Firm in the African Context
6. Markets and Urban Provisioning
7. Development as Diffusion: Manufacturing Productivity and Africa's Missing Middle
8. Employment, Unemployment, and Underemployment in Africa
9. Inclusive Growth in Africa
10. Poverty: Shifting Fortunes and New Perspectives
11. Dimensions of African Inequality
12. Inclusive Growth and Developmental Governance: The Next African Frontiers
13. Economics and the Study of Corruption in Africa
14. Thoughts on Development: The African Experience
15. The Idea of Economic Development: Views from Africa
PART II: METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES
16. Principles of Economics: African Challenges
17. Economics and Culture in the African Context
18. The Economics of Non-Cognitive Skills
19. Modeling African Economies: A DSGE Approach
20. Measuring Economic Progress in the African Context
21. Measuring Structural Economic Vulnerability in Africa
22. Measuring Democracy: An Economic Approach
23. Measurement and Analysis of Competitiveness
PART III: HISTORICAL TRAJECTORIES AND ECONOMIC LANDSCAPE
24. Africa's New Economic Opportunities
25. Tigers or Tiger Prawns? The African growth 'tragedy' and 'renaissance' in perspective
26. The Economic Legacies of the African Slave Trades
27. The Economics of Colonialism in Africa
28. The Public Private Interface
29. Natural Resources: Precious Boon or Precious Ban?
30. Volatility and Vulnerability
31. Africa's Urbanization: Challenges and Opportunities
32. Environmental and Climate Change Issues in Africa
33. Informality, Growth and Development in Africa
34. Capitalism and African Business Cultures
35. African Monetary Unions: An Obituary
PART IV: THE ECONOMICS OF POLITICAL TRANSFORMATION
36. The Impact of Democracy on Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, 1982-2012
37. The Economics of Authoritarianism in North Africa
38. The Potential Economic Dividends of North African Revolutions
39. The Economics of Violent Conflict and War in Africa
40. The Causes and Consequences of Terrorism in Africa
41. The Political Economy of the New Arab Awakening
42. Democratic Decentralization and Economic Development
43. The Economics of Happiness and Anger in North Africa
