Thanks for the review I cant wait to get the book myself, but my issue is if these are the four examples, there's plenty to leave desired.
1) I am glad he mentioned Mauritius. Its a great study on manufacturing and I am glad he mentioned ethiopia on farming, great examples.
2) Botswana's success is less of institutions and more of the fact that it maintained its joint venture with de beers instead of nationalizing diamonds like Sierra Leone. De beers had a global monopoly until the US DOJ anti trust case in the 2000s. So unlike the rest of africa which had commodity prices busts in the 1980s and 1990s, botswana due to its dependence on the De Beers diamond cartel, was able to hoard diamonds to prevent a price bust collapse.
But now that de Beers lost its monopoly power and that synethetic diamonds from india and china have flooded the market, botswana is struggling now. Also botswana has tried to diversify to manufacturing many times, but south africa has sabotaged botswana's manufacturing capabilities with import quotas in their customs union. They also have some structural problems for manufacturing. Its certainly a success story by african standards, but with an asterisk.
3) You mentioned rwanda with minerals in congo so i wont continue on that. I hope he delved into how rwanda basically has a party-military fusion economy similar to taiwan back in the day.
But even then, Rwanda is still poorer than half of sub-saharan africa. Its per capita incomes matches its neighbors uganda which has 4x its population.
Its a little weird to use rwanda as an example when its still playing catch up growth with the rest of the continent post genocide.
Thanks Yaw, looking forward to reading your review. I agree with all your points. As a general point I think Studwell is weirdly allergic to doing quantitative comparisons (e.g., Rwanda's low base level of GDP, Mauritius's high one). A simple chart or table at the front would have cleared up a lot of issues.
Rwanda is in the top half of Sub Saharan Africa, but not top quartile
Rwanda's HDI is 57.8%, less than Uganda, Ivory Coast, Zambia,Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Comoros, Angola, Ghana,Kenya, Sao Tome, Congo-Brazzaville, Namibia, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Gabon, Botswana, South Africa, Mauritius, and Seychelles.
Uganda is Rwanda's neighbor with over 4x its population, with a higher HDI, yet you never here about Museveni's Uganda as much as Kagame's Rwanda when it comes to performance.
People think Rwanda is great because of the early 2000s big growth rebound from the genocide and because of Kigali, which is amazing.But only 13% of the population lives there. The majority of Rwandans live in rural areas as subsistence farmers.
Also, most African countries had explosive growth from 2000-2014 due to a world wide commodity boom fueled by China. So while Rwanda had miraculous growth during that time, so did most of sub-saharan africa.
Uganda, like Rwanda, mainly sells coffee beans and sell minerals that come from congo. The highest income country in east Africa that isnt an island state is Kenya. Both uganda and rwanda have not graduated to lower middle income yet, while tanzania, Kenya and others graduated a while ago.
Sometimes war seems to beget dysfunction. Do u think when a state has consolidated itself such that conflicts are interstate concerns, that war may sharpen state capacity as some allege to have happened in European history? Maybe Uganda and Rwanda benefit in this way from long war in DRC?
Will Uganda oil sales also generate rents for pipeline-hosting countries and maritime ports?
Tanzania recently finished a big dam of its own, no?
Interesting idea on interstate conflicts. Comparison needs to be made with regimes that implode due to interstate conflict, eg imperial Russia and Austria-Hungary, or bankrupt themselves (imperial Spain)
Uganda oil sales give some transit $ benefit to Tanzania.
I read How Asia Works and was pretty underwhelmed. The claims were sweeping and the evidence was scarce. There is quite a lot of self-congratulation for a theory that, while quite interesting, isn't close to being proven. In fairness to Studwell though, that's probably what you have to do though when you're writing a book like this. I do think that he underestimates the value of institutions, governance, and state capacity. Industrial policy is very vulnerable to elite capture; you need to have a lot of discipline to actually allow large firms to fail. And for all we know, east asian success could be due to this state capacity, not to industrial policy per se.
This is an excellent review of the book. Thank you.
It's surprising that you don't mention literacy which Studwell writes about a bit. It's a big deal. Literacy was so low in Africa in 1960 that economic growth was very hard. As well as the population density that he goes on about.
Also it is surprising that Studwell doesn't mention information technology more. Africa is the first country where development can occur where people have access to mobile phones and electronic money.
Yes adult literacy is crucial and Studwell understates its importance. He doesn't mention that Mauritius had the second highest literacy rate in Africa in 1947 and that's a key reason why it's the second richest in Africa today. He says Philippines has lagged despite good literacy, and that was true 20 years ago, but not now (it's growth rate is the same as Indonesia and only 1ppt less than Vietnam or India). Korea's mass literacy campaign in the 1950s was the pre-condition of its success. Covered all this in the first chapter of The Time Travelling Economist, mentioning his How Asia Works books which was a great read
Cuba's literacy rate was always higher than most in the region. Castro accelerated it ... (quite good teen fiction book on it, My Brigadista Year). For Korea, their development economics website had a great paper on its 1950s literacy drive
But just having phones is surely useful. Electronic payment and access to wikipedia on their own are useful. As would be access to media that wasn't state controlled.
Mauritius, Ethiopia, Ruanda, Botswana… don’t really feel like representing an Africa… from which broad conclusions can be drawn … but maybe that is is the point in itself
As an African who actually grew up on the continent, “How Africa Works” is like a tourist’s guide regurgitating already known stories about Rwanda, Botswana, Mauritius and Ethiopia. Author claims to rely only on World Bank Data but if that’s the case then Rwanda and Ethiopia really are not fascinating at all. Rwanda seems to have been selected because of its being new kid on the block with a story to tell. Nkrumah’s Ghana would have commanded same interests if Rawlings had been ruling. Even for Ethiopia which has done quite a lot in civil service capacity building with Japan and has had extensive technical support in administration, none of that was mentioned.
The author seems to have just back-packed across these countries and been spoon-fed narratives.
Nothing original for any African to understand Africa. Maybe for those who think Africans still are waiting for electricity, the book might surprise.
Agree with you. You should try The Time Travelling Economist. By linking education to fertility and savings, it better explains why we're seeing success in Morocco and lower per capita GDP growth even now in Africa (often 2%) vs 5% in Asia.
It's a good read with so many good examples on so many issues. But it's a shame he did not first read The Time Travelling Economist published in 2022. This includes the Rwanda as Singapore comparison I wrote about back in 2011, and I'm in complete agreement on why manufacturing is so important.
The population density argument does not work (see graphs at https://x.com/CharlieTTEcon/status/2018624429455204690?s=20). While cities are more efficient and better for GDP growth, this only works when savings exist to build infrastructure, others you get slum cities, instead of high growth. He alludes to this problem when he mentions Lagos travel costs being so high, but does not then ask why that infrastructure is unaffordable.
The praise for Ethiopia glosses over the line which admits special economic zones have only created 90,000 jobs for a population of over 100 million, and does not focus on the problem that the Ethiopian model is unaffordable in a high fertility country. They ran out of savings and he doesn't ask why that happened, and why it didn't happen in Asia.
He understates the importance of education, repeating his critique of Philippines (which was true when he wrote How Asia Works. But this is no longer true since fertility fell; their growth is the same as Indonesia's over the last 20 years and just 1 percentage point less than than Vietnam or India. The argument is weakened by throwing in comparison with education and Russia (far richer than any in Africa) or Cuba (communist systems never produce wealth, this is not an education issue). So in talking about Mauritius, he does not mention its excellent education figures in the 1970s in contrast to almost everyone else on the continent. This is a crucial reason why its government seems so effective relative to most in Africa. When I compared per capita GDP growth to demographics, Mauritius has barely outperformed the average of all countries since 1960.
Then he dismisses Morocco's industrialisation when it's the most important success story on the continent in the last 20 years. His book has many great pages, but misses the crucial link between development and interest rates, which is what The Time Travelling Economist explained
I am a big fan of his work, and it helped inspire two of my books. My work has only benefited from his authorship. But while this is a useful book, it misses the key issue, which is why interest rates in Moroccco and Mauritius are the same as China and Vietnam, while commercial interest rates are double digit in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, etc
You mention homogeneity in East Asian countries as a potential asset. I have read that nation-state formation was not always so natural, with the "state" part sometimes working assiduously at making the "nation" part. Can African countries use media products like state newspapers and subsidized streaming and gaming services to foster literacy and fluency in select languages?
How plausible are North African states as foci of development that can help lead nearby sub-Saharan states by example, trade gravity, remittances etc? For instance I understand Libya before NATO demolition was a migratory destination for residents of Sahel states. Egypt is a large country with some impressive assets and capabilities - if MDBs help finance Kepco atomic energy plants in Egypt and/or S Africa, would more coal and natural gas become available for energy-poor countries elsewhere in Africa?
Commodity-exporting Latin American countries have often done well during China's growth spurts, tho US fracking's boom seems to have weakened bonanzas for countries like Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. Will African countries benefit from continued growth in China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and other Asian countries? I think I have read that Guinea and Algeria are growing their iron ore exports, for instance, and that Namibia and DRC are benefiting from higher copper demand. Maybe these incomes can finance dams on the Congo River
If Africa's relatively low "legibility" in the James Scott sense makes policy know-how hard to acquire and apply, could it be more constructive to aim at measures that enhance overall circumstances like G7 tariffs on Chinese textiles to help African countries' competitiveness, MDB support for LNG export facilities in places like Venezuela and Argentina to make more energy available, MDB support for nuclear plants and dams in places like India, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Taiwan so that more coal and gas can go to Africa instead of elsewhere? Would African agricultural yields likely improve if China and India had more coal and gas with which to make and export fertilizers?
Will solar panels and batteries potentially lower the resistance for building up growth flywheel momentum? Once you have them installed you don't have to refuel them continuously in the same way as oil, gas, and coal - fired plants, which should help some poor countries' fx solvency. Maybe EVs can have similar effects. Pv installation seems to be labor-intensive which might be nice for creating jobs, and projects are potentially faster and simpler than prior power plant forms. Intermittency is a fatal problem for some industries but not all, and the latter kind of industry may be the lucrative clientele that finances further plant buildout, enabling still more energy-intensive activities and so on. Did prior technical innovations in electricity generation or transportation ignite growth in new frontiers, historically?
Does recent African integration help, say by enhancing market size?
Can Africa exploit niches left by Western woke medical ethics? E.g maybe Western scientists are squeamish about annihilating mosquitos or careful about finding clinical trial candidates, whereas East African states could trial TB or malaria candidate vaccines on captured members of RSF or Al Shabaab
As someone who doesn't know much about the economics, this sentence "the "state" part sometimes working assiduously at making the "nation" part." first struck me as very insightful. The stories of how a nation is (culturally) crafted are too common to ignore.
But this point "MDB support for nuclear plants and dams in places like India, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Taiwan so that more coal and gas can go to Africa instead of elsewhere" is really insightful. I mean, I think it is. Not like I understand this stuff. But the idea is that there's like a... queue? a developmental process that can't easily be short-circuited, and that it might involve these dirty technologies, which are not highly recommended these days. But we might have to think about allowing them. Shift the dirty to Africa, on the understanding that it is a stage through which the continent will pass.
Sorry, I'm a bit drunk tonight. But this comment was worth highlighting. I hope your ideas are fed through to people who are making decisions.
Thank you for your kind drunken words. As well as being dirtier, coal plants are easier to make and operate. Also countries with security problems may endanger others if fissile material can't be properly protected and so on. Even technically adept countries like Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Poland, and Germany continue to use coal-fired power plants
Well said, it's like a queue. Technically advanced countries can help high-income and middle-income (and some low-income) countries satisfy energy demand with energy options that aren't really in the cards for other low-income countries, so that those less technically advanced low and mid-income countries can move ahead somewhat in the queue for use of less technically demanding fuels. Of course there will be some Jevon's and growth effects that make it so adding a 1gw nuclear plant to Taiwan's or Brazil's grid won't necessarily make 1gw of gas/coal available for countries who are pretty far back in the queue. But if the countries adding nuclear plants are adjacent technically inept poor countries who are far back in the queue, then some of that growth from additional nuclear plants and savings on coal/gas imports. Egypt and S Africa come to mind, for instance. S Africa receives many migrants from neighboring countries and Nigeria, I think
If we look at the countries that have shouldered the burden of poverty reduction in recent decades, we see countries like China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia that use tons of coal. The most technically advanced sub-Saharan African country, as far as I can tell, is South Africa, a country with a handsome natural endowment of coal. Of course we know coal's importance in the early industrial revolution, as well. To me all of this suggests that availability of these fuels - and every other form of fuel, for that matter - for poor countries is healthy for poverty reduction
Coal is dirty but if u can use it to make electricity u can free up more gas (or even electricity) for indoor cooking, which is very harmful when done with other fuels and inadequate ventilation
Russia haz been a leader in helping devwloping countries develop nuclear power plants. The US should stop impeding Korea from competing in that space
Building more solar in places like Spain, California, Texas, Bangladesh may also let these places use less methane gas for electricity production, freeing some of it up for nobler uses in poor countries. US permitting reform may be good for development by facilitating more learning by PV manufacturers, shrinking gas consumption vs counterfactual, and increasing US oil and gas production and export
As well as being dirtier, coal plants are easier to make and operate. Also countries with security problems may endanger others if fissile material can't be properly protected and so on. Even technically adept countries like Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Poland, the United States, and Germany continue to use coal-fired power plants.
If we look at the countries that have shouldered the burden of poverty reduction in recent decades, we see countries like China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia that use tons of coal. The most technically advanced sub-Saharan African country, as far as I can tell, is South Africa, a country with a handsome natural endowment of coal. Of course we know coal's importance in the early industrial revolution, as well. To me all of this suggests that availability of these fuels - and every other form of fuel, for that matter - for poor countries is healthy for poverty reduction
AFRICOM’s official messaging — “peace through strength,” “building partner capacity,” “countering violent extremism” — is the same vocabulary of deception that has accompanied every US military operation documented in this essay. When the AFRICOM commander tells the Senate that a 37-year-old African leader who nationalized his country’s gold, built processing plants, enacted free prenatal, birthing, and postnatal care, and distributed tractors to farmers is the enemy, the lie is not even hidden anymore. It is spoken into the Congressional Record, on camera, under oath, and it still passes without challenge in US media.
Mauritius: I do not think an island that is 2000 km from Africa which is demographically not very African (2/3rds Indian) is an example of African development.
The Wikipedia page on Botswana does not seem like a cause for strong optimism. Half of government revenue comes from diamonds. But synthetic diamonds are cutting into revenue and gaining global market share. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Botswana
Botswana is also being hurt by dependence on the corrupt and crumbling Eskom electric utility in South Africa.
Do you think looking at Côte d'Ivoire in comparison would have been a better case study? They're a big agricultural success story and supposedly in early manufacturing, but would be interesting ot look at in context?
Cote d'Ivoire would be interesting. Their fundamental problem is low adult literacy, but they have had surprising success on manufacturing despite that.
Thanks for the review I cant wait to get the book myself, but my issue is if these are the four examples, there's plenty to leave desired.
1) I am glad he mentioned Mauritius. Its a great study on manufacturing and I am glad he mentioned ethiopia on farming, great examples.
2) Botswana's success is less of institutions and more of the fact that it maintained its joint venture with de beers instead of nationalizing diamonds like Sierra Leone. De beers had a global monopoly until the US DOJ anti trust case in the 2000s. So unlike the rest of africa which had commodity prices busts in the 1980s and 1990s, botswana due to its dependence on the De Beers diamond cartel, was able to hoard diamonds to prevent a price bust collapse.
But now that de Beers lost its monopoly power and that synethetic diamonds from india and china have flooded the market, botswana is struggling now. Also botswana has tried to diversify to manufacturing many times, but south africa has sabotaged botswana's manufacturing capabilities with import quotas in their customs union. They also have some structural problems for manufacturing. Its certainly a success story by african standards, but with an asterisk.
3) You mentioned rwanda with minerals in congo so i wont continue on that. I hope he delved into how rwanda basically has a party-military fusion economy similar to taiwan back in the day.
But even then, Rwanda is still poorer than half of sub-saharan africa. Its per capita incomes matches its neighbors uganda which has 4x its population.
Its a little weird to use rwanda as an example when its still playing catch up growth with the rest of the continent post genocide.
Thanks Yaw, looking forward to reading your review. I agree with all your points. As a general point I think Studwell is weirdly allergic to doing quantitative comparisons (e.g., Rwanda's low base level of GDP, Mauritius's high one). A simple chart or table at the front would have cleared up a lot of issues.
Interesting points. How does Rwanda HDI compare to peers' scores?
Rwanda is in the top half of Sub Saharan Africa, but not top quartile
Rwanda's HDI is 57.8%, less than Uganda, Ivory Coast, Zambia,Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Comoros, Angola, Ghana,Kenya, Sao Tome, Congo-Brazzaville, Namibia, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Gabon, Botswana, South Africa, Mauritius, and Seychelles.
https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/country-insights#/ranks
Uganda is Rwanda's neighbor with over 4x its population, with a higher HDI, yet you never here about Museveni's Uganda as much as Kagame's Rwanda when it comes to performance.
People think Rwanda is great because of the early 2000s big growth rebound from the genocide and because of Kigali, which is amazing.But only 13% of the population lives there. The majority of Rwandans live in rural areas as subsistence farmers.
Also, most African countries had explosive growth from 2000-2014 due to a world wide commodity boom fueled by China. So while Rwanda had miraculous growth during that time, so did most of sub-saharan africa.
I always thought of Uganda as being kind of a similar story usually mentioned as kind of a peer. Not so?
Uganda, like Rwanda, mainly sells coffee beans and sell minerals that come from congo. The highest income country in east Africa that isnt an island state is Kenya. Both uganda and rwanda have not graduated to lower middle income yet, while tanzania, Kenya and others graduated a while ago.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-bank-income-groups
But Uganda is about to start selling crude oil this year. So thaf will help. Uganda also has an EV company.
I made a series on Uganda if you would like to see here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/yawboadu/p/economic-and-geopolitical-history-b57?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=garki
Sometimes war seems to beget dysfunction. Do u think when a state has consolidated itself such that conflicts are interstate concerns, that war may sharpen state capacity as some allege to have happened in European history? Maybe Uganda and Rwanda benefit in this way from long war in DRC?
Will Uganda oil sales also generate rents for pipeline-hosting countries and maritime ports?
Tanzania recently finished a big dam of its own, no?
Interesting idea on interstate conflicts. Comparison needs to be made with regimes that implode due to interstate conflict, eg imperial Russia and Austria-Hungary, or bankrupt themselves (imperial Spain)
Uganda oil sales give some transit $ benefit to Tanzania.
Tanzania dam was built by the Turks I think.
Maybe Museveni and Kagame were even brothers in arms?
They were! When tutsis were exiled from Rwanda, Kagame helped Museveni orchestrate a coup against the Obote and the Okellos.
In addition, Museveni provided logistics support when Kagame was overthrowing Habryiama in the Rwandan Civil War before the genocide.
When they both took over their countries, they worked together to help Laurent Kabila takeover the country from Mobutu in the 1st congo war.
But they had a falling out in the second congo war, and their troops were killing each other in the diamond area in Kisangani.
Great review, thanks!
I read How Asia Works and was pretty underwhelmed. The claims were sweeping and the evidence was scarce. There is quite a lot of self-congratulation for a theory that, while quite interesting, isn't close to being proven. In fairness to Studwell though, that's probably what you have to do though when you're writing a book like this. I do think that he underestimates the value of institutions, governance, and state capacity. Industrial policy is very vulnerable to elite capture; you need to have a lot of discipline to actually allow large firms to fail. And for all we know, east asian success could be due to this state capacity, not to industrial policy per se.
Same with this one
Would have expected more focus on Nigeria given its now Africa's biggest economy?
This is an excellent review of the book. Thank you.
It's surprising that you don't mention literacy which Studwell writes about a bit. It's a big deal. Literacy was so low in Africa in 1960 that economic growth was very hard. As well as the population density that he goes on about.
Also it is surprising that Studwell doesn't mention information technology more. Africa is the first country where development can occur where people have access to mobile phones and electronic money.
The book is very much worth a read.
Yes adult literacy is crucial and Studwell understates its importance. He doesn't mention that Mauritius had the second highest literacy rate in Africa in 1947 and that's a key reason why it's the second richest in Africa today. He says Philippines has lagged despite good literacy, and that was true 20 years ago, but not now (it's growth rate is the same as Indonesia and only 1ppt less than Vietnam or India). Korea's mass literacy campaign in the 1950s was the pre-condition of its success. Covered all this in the first chapter of The Time Travelling Economist, mentioning his How Asia Works books which was a great read
Interesting. I'll check out your book.
How Asia Works is well worth it as you say.
What is worth reading about how countries like Cuba and Vietnam raced to high literacy?
I've never seen anything. It seems like something cultural that was there before.
From a quick search on Vietnam there was maybe 10% literacy in 1900 but by 1930 the majority of urban people were literate.
Cuba had high literacy by 1950 - upwards of 70%.
Cuba's literacy rate was always higher than most in the region. Castro accelerated it ... (quite good teen fiction book on it, My Brigadista Year). For Korea, their development economics website had a great paper on its 1950s literacy drive
I will check My Brigadista Year and the Korean Literacy Drive paper
I think the correct link to the pdf on Korea is this one https://archives.kdischool.ac.kr/bitstream/11125/42243/1/%282011%29%20Modularization%20of%20Korea%27s%20development%20experience_development%20process%20and%20outcomes%20of%20adult%20literacy%20education%20in%20korea.PDF... discussion about this on X.com here https://x.com/oliverwkim/status/2023529151085375962?s=20
Will AI make it easier to translate more texts - such as pedagogical material for teaching literacy - into more languages?
Maybe.
But just having phones is surely useful. Electronic payment and access to wikipedia on their own are useful. As would be access to media that wasn't state controlled.
Yes, definitely, as ends in themselves as much as instrumentally. I love reading blogs like this, for instance
Mauritius, Ethiopia, Ruanda, Botswana… don’t really feel like representing an Africa… from which broad conclusions can be drawn … but maybe that is is the point in itself
Agreed.
Read it in a night, Underwhelmed.
As an African who actually grew up on the continent, “How Africa Works” is like a tourist’s guide regurgitating already known stories about Rwanda, Botswana, Mauritius and Ethiopia. Author claims to rely only on World Bank Data but if that’s the case then Rwanda and Ethiopia really are not fascinating at all. Rwanda seems to have been selected because of its being new kid on the block with a story to tell. Nkrumah’s Ghana would have commanded same interests if Rawlings had been ruling. Even for Ethiopia which has done quite a lot in civil service capacity building with Japan and has had extensive technical support in administration, none of that was mentioned.
The author seems to have just back-packed across these countries and been spoon-fed narratives.
Nothing original for any African to understand Africa. Maybe for those who think Africans still are waiting for electricity, the book might surprise.
Agree with you. You should try The Time Travelling Economist. By linking education to fertility and savings, it better explains why we're seeing success in Morocco and lower per capita GDP growth even now in Africa (often 2%) vs 5% in Asia.
Read it
500 million or more without electricity at home, no?
It's a good read with so many good examples on so many issues. But it's a shame he did not first read The Time Travelling Economist published in 2022. This includes the Rwanda as Singapore comparison I wrote about back in 2011, and I'm in complete agreement on why manufacturing is so important.
The population density argument does not work (see graphs at https://x.com/CharlieTTEcon/status/2018624429455204690?s=20). While cities are more efficient and better for GDP growth, this only works when savings exist to build infrastructure, others you get slum cities, instead of high growth. He alludes to this problem when he mentions Lagos travel costs being so high, but does not then ask why that infrastructure is unaffordable.
The praise for Ethiopia glosses over the line which admits special economic zones have only created 90,000 jobs for a population of over 100 million, and does not focus on the problem that the Ethiopian model is unaffordable in a high fertility country. They ran out of savings and he doesn't ask why that happened, and why it didn't happen in Asia.
He understates the importance of education, repeating his critique of Philippines (which was true when he wrote How Asia Works. But this is no longer true since fertility fell; their growth is the same as Indonesia's over the last 20 years and just 1 percentage point less than than Vietnam or India. The argument is weakened by throwing in comparison with education and Russia (far richer than any in Africa) or Cuba (communist systems never produce wealth, this is not an education issue). So in talking about Mauritius, he does not mention its excellent education figures in the 1970s in contrast to almost everyone else on the continent. This is a crucial reason why its government seems so effective relative to most in Africa. When I compared per capita GDP growth to demographics, Mauritius has barely outperformed the average of all countries since 1960.
Then he dismisses Morocco's industrialisation when it's the most important success story on the continent in the last 20 years. His book has many great pages, but misses the crucial link between development and interest rates, which is what The Time Travelling Economist explained
I am a big fan of his work, and it helped inspire two of my books. My work has only benefited from his authorship. But while this is a useful book, it misses the key issue, which is why interest rates in Moroccco and Mauritius are the same as China and Vietnam, while commercial interest rates are double digit in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, etc
You mention homogeneity in East Asian countries as a potential asset. I have read that nation-state formation was not always so natural, with the "state" part sometimes working assiduously at making the "nation" part. Can African countries use media products like state newspapers and subsidized streaming and gaming services to foster literacy and fluency in select languages?
How plausible are North African states as foci of development that can help lead nearby sub-Saharan states by example, trade gravity, remittances etc? For instance I understand Libya before NATO demolition was a migratory destination for residents of Sahel states. Egypt is a large country with some impressive assets and capabilities - if MDBs help finance Kepco atomic energy plants in Egypt and/or S Africa, would more coal and natural gas become available for energy-poor countries elsewhere in Africa?
Commodity-exporting Latin American countries have often done well during China's growth spurts, tho US fracking's boom seems to have weakened bonanzas for countries like Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. Will African countries benefit from continued growth in China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, and other Asian countries? I think I have read that Guinea and Algeria are growing their iron ore exports, for instance, and that Namibia and DRC are benefiting from higher copper demand. Maybe these incomes can finance dams on the Congo River
If Africa's relatively low "legibility" in the James Scott sense makes policy know-how hard to acquire and apply, could it be more constructive to aim at measures that enhance overall circumstances like G7 tariffs on Chinese textiles to help African countries' competitiveness, MDB support for LNG export facilities in places like Venezuela and Argentina to make more energy available, MDB support for nuclear plants and dams in places like India, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Taiwan so that more coal and gas can go to Africa instead of elsewhere? Would African agricultural yields likely improve if China and India had more coal and gas with which to make and export fertilizers?
Will solar panels and batteries potentially lower the resistance for building up growth flywheel momentum? Once you have them installed you don't have to refuel them continuously in the same way as oil, gas, and coal - fired plants, which should help some poor countries' fx solvency. Maybe EVs can have similar effects. Pv installation seems to be labor-intensive which might be nice for creating jobs, and projects are potentially faster and simpler than prior power plant forms. Intermittency is a fatal problem for some industries but not all, and the latter kind of industry may be the lucrative clientele that finances further plant buildout, enabling still more energy-intensive activities and so on. Did prior technical innovations in electricity generation or transportation ignite growth in new frontiers, historically?
Does recent African integration help, say by enhancing market size?
Can Africa exploit niches left by Western woke medical ethics? E.g maybe Western scientists are squeamish about annihilating mosquitos or careful about finding clinical trial candidates, whereas East African states could trial TB or malaria candidate vaccines on captured members of RSF or Al Shabaab
Very thought-provoking post
An astoundingly thought-provoking reply, as well.
As someone who doesn't know much about the economics, this sentence "the "state" part sometimes working assiduously at making the "nation" part." first struck me as very insightful. The stories of how a nation is (culturally) crafted are too common to ignore.
But this point "MDB support for nuclear plants and dams in places like India, Bangladesh, Brazil, and Taiwan so that more coal and gas can go to Africa instead of elsewhere" is really insightful. I mean, I think it is. Not like I understand this stuff. But the idea is that there's like a... queue? a developmental process that can't easily be short-circuited, and that it might involve these dirty technologies, which are not highly recommended these days. But we might have to think about allowing them. Shift the dirty to Africa, on the understanding that it is a stage through which the continent will pass.
Sorry, I'm a bit drunk tonight. But this comment was worth highlighting. I hope your ideas are fed through to people who are making decisions.
Thank you for your kind drunken words. As well as being dirtier, coal plants are easier to make and operate. Also countries with security problems may endanger others if fissile material can't be properly protected and so on. Even technically adept countries like Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Poland, and Germany continue to use coal-fired power plants
Well said, it's like a queue. Technically advanced countries can help high-income and middle-income (and some low-income) countries satisfy energy demand with energy options that aren't really in the cards for other low-income countries, so that those less technically advanced low and mid-income countries can move ahead somewhat in the queue for use of less technically demanding fuels. Of course there will be some Jevon's and growth effects that make it so adding a 1gw nuclear plant to Taiwan's or Brazil's grid won't necessarily make 1gw of gas/coal available for countries who are pretty far back in the queue. But if the countries adding nuclear plants are adjacent technically inept poor countries who are far back in the queue, then some of that growth from additional nuclear plants and savings on coal/gas imports. Egypt and S Africa come to mind, for instance. S Africa receives many migrants from neighboring countries and Nigeria, I think
If we look at the countries that have shouldered the burden of poverty reduction in recent decades, we see countries like China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia that use tons of coal. The most technically advanced sub-Saharan African country, as far as I can tell, is South Africa, a country with a handsome natural endowment of coal. Of course we know coal's importance in the early industrial revolution, as well. To me all of this suggests that availability of these fuels - and every other form of fuel, for that matter - for poor countries is healthy for poverty reduction
Coal is dirty but if u can use it to make electricity u can free up more gas (or even electricity) for indoor cooking, which is very harmful when done with other fuels and inadequate ventilation
Russia haz been a leader in helping devwloping countries develop nuclear power plants. The US should stop impeding Korea from competing in that space
Building more solar in places like Spain, California, Texas, Bangladesh may also let these places use less methane gas for electricity production, freeing some of it up for nobler uses in poor countries. US permitting reform may be good for development by facilitating more learning by PV manufacturers, shrinking gas consumption vs counterfactual, and increasing US oil and gas production and export
As well as being dirtier, coal plants are easier to make and operate. Also countries with security problems may endanger others if fissile material can't be properly protected and so on. Even technically adept countries like Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Poland, the United States, and Germany continue to use coal-fired power plants.
If we look at the countries that have shouldered the burden of poverty reduction in recent decades, we see countries like China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia that use tons of coal. The most technically advanced sub-Saharan African country, as far as I can tell, is South Africa, a country with a handsome natural endowment of coal. Of course we know coal's importance in the early industrial revolution, as well. To me all of this suggests that availability of these fuels - and every other form of fuel, for that matter - for poor countries is healthy for poverty reduction
AFRICOM’s official messaging — “peace through strength,” “building partner capacity,” “countering violent extremism” — is the same vocabulary of deception that has accompanied every US military operation documented in this essay. When the AFRICOM commander tells the Senate that a 37-year-old African leader who nationalized his country’s gold, built processing plants, enacted free prenatal, birthing, and postnatal care, and distributed tractors to farmers is the enemy, the lie is not even hidden anymore. It is spoken into the Congressional Record, on camera, under oath, and it still passes without challenge in US media.
https://griobhtha1.substack.com/p/trust-nothing-they-say-the-exposed
https://thejunglechaosco.substack.com/p/vanillas-livelihood-rollercoaster?r=6xmz51
Mauritius: I do not think an island that is 2000 km from Africa which is demographically not very African (2/3rds Indian) is an example of African development.
The Wikipedia page on Botswana does not seem like a cause for strong optimism. Half of government revenue comes from diamonds. But synthetic diamonds are cutting into revenue and gaining global market share. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Botswana
Botswana is also being hurt by dependence on the corrupt and crumbling Eskom electric utility in South Africa.
Do you think looking at Côte d'Ivoire in comparison would have been a better case study? They're a big agricultural success story and supposedly in early manufacturing, but would be interesting ot look at in context?
Cote d'Ivoire would be interesting. Their fundamental problem is low adult literacy, but they have had surprising success on manufacturing despite that.
he should write a book on latin America now that would be fun