Abstract
Current trends in economic policy are severely critical of the idea of state intervention in the economy. Although it is still a matter for argument in the industrialised countries, in the Third World virtually all strands of thought converge in denouncing the role of an all-pervasive state in the economic sphere.1
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Notes
For neo-classical thought, one of the most brilliant recent treatises is G. Sorman, La Nouvelle richesse des nations (Paris: Fayard, 1987), p. 334. For the Marxist perspective, see F. Godin Bénin 1972–1982. La logique de l’Etat africain (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1986), p. 5.
See B. Contamin and Y-A Fauré, La bataille des entreprises publiques en Côte d’Ivoire. L’histoire d’un adjustement intenue (Karthala: 1990); also Y-A Fauré ‘Ivory Coast: analysing a crisis’, in J. Dunn, R. Rathbone and D.C. O’Brien (eds) Modern African States (Cambridge University Press, 1989).
C. Coquery-Vidrovitch, ‘Introduction’ in Entreprises et entrepreneurs en Afrique (XIXe et XXe siecles) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1983) vol. I, p. 16.
J-L Vellut ‘Articulations entre entreprises et Etat: pouvoirs hégémoniques dans le bloc colonial belge (1908–1960)’, in Entreprises et entrepreneurs, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 49–79.
L. Gbagbo, ‘Les entreprises coloniales en Côte d’Ivoire à la veille de la seconde guerre mondiale’, in Entreprises et entrepreneurs, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 484 ff.
An analysis such as that presented by Boyer from the perspective of the ‘regulatory school’ goes beyond the scope of this article. See R. Boyer La théorie de la régulation: une analyse critique (Paris: La Decouverte, 1987), pp. 142.
Ministère de la Coopération, Déséquilibres structurels et programmes d’ajustement en Côte d’Ivoire, (Paris: Mission d’évaluation, 1986) Annexe II, p. 54.
K. Arhin, P. Hesp and Van der Laan, Marketing Boards in Tropical Africa (Leiden: African Studies Centre, 1985), 208 ff.
See G. Courade ‘Des complexes qui coûtent cher. La priorité agroindustrielle dans l’agriculture camerounaise’, Politique Africaine, no. 14 (June 1984) 75–91; also, for Burkina Faso, R. Otayek, ‘Burkina Faso: entre l’Etat mou et l’Etat total, un balancement qui n’en finit pas’, Journées sur “l’Etat africain en question”, Centre d’étude d’Afrique noire, Université de Bordeaux I, mimeo (Jan. 1988).
Grellet G., Structures et stratégies de développment économique (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1986), p. 248.
Ministère de la Coopération, op. cit., Rapport de synthèse, p. 29. In the same vein, Almeida (a member of the World Bank mission to Lomé) writes that ‘foreign investors, aware of their strong position vis-à-vis states embroiled in financial and economic difficulties, try to exploit their advantage by demanding all kinds of tax benefits and other concessions.’ See D-F Almeida, ‘La privatisation des entreprises publiques en Afrique au sud du Sahara’, Le Mois en Afrique, no. 247–8 (August–September 1986) 73.
Bulletin de l’Afrique noire (Paris), no. 1398 (3 March 1988) 12.
AMIRA-AFIRD, Etat des travaux sur les indicateurs de transition (Paris: 1983), p. 322.
The data which follow are taken from a Ministère de la Coopération study, Evolution de la fiscalité dans 13 pays d’Afrique noire francophone (Paris: 1982), Série Etudes et Documents no. 48, 1982, 284 pp. + 63 pp. (Annexes). Anderson’s analysis confirms the ‘gradual shift from the taxation of trade to the taxation of commodities and income’; see D. Anderson, ‘Public revenue and economic policy in African countries’, Washington DC, World Bank Discussion Papers, no. 19, 1987, p. 4.
Ibid., p. 47.
P. Hesp, Producer Prices in Tropical Africa: a Review of Official Prices for Agricultural Products, 1960–1980, Leiden, African Studies Centre, Research Report no. 23, 1985.
Arhin, P. Hesp and Van der Laan, op. cit.
For a detailed analysis of these debates, see: B. Contamin and Y-A Fauré, op. cit., pp. 101–14.
World Bank, World Development Report, 1981, Washington DC 1981, p. 87.
See the evidence presented by the former Ivorian Minister of Agriculture, Denis Bra Kanon, in Développement ou appauvrissement, (Paris: Economica, 1985), p. 129.
B. Contamin, L’entreprise publique, instrument du développement économique national. Le cas du Cameroun, Thèse complémentaire de Sciences économiques, Université de Lyon II, 1974, 213 pp. A detailed analysis of public enterprises in Senegal, Mali and Madagascar in the 1960s shows both the general similarity of the issues facing such enterprises and the great diversity of organisational forms which they take; cf. F. Constantin and F. Coulon, ‘Entreprises publiques et changement politique au Mali’, in F. Constantin et al., Les entreprises publiques en Afrique noire, (Paris: Pédone, 1979), pp. 132ff.
M. Gaud M., ‘Le secteur public en Afrique noire’, Les Annales de l’economie collective, no. 3 (July–Sept. 1968) 407.
J.R. Nellis, Public Enterprises in Subsaharan Africa, Washington DC, World Bank Discussion Papers, no. 1, 1986, p. 5. As the definitions used in different countries are not consistent, great care should be taken in respect of any cross-national comparisons.
Caisse autonome d’amortissement, Rapport annuel 1982 (Abidjan), p. 41.
Contamin and Fauré, op. cit.
L. de Azcarate, ‘Les programmes d’ajustement structurel de la Banque mondiale et la coordination avec le Fonds monétaire international’, in P. Guillaumont (ed.), Croissance et ajustement. Les Problèmes de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, (Paris: Economica, 1985), p. 233.
IMF Bulletin, 30 May 1987, p. 83.
J. Alibert, ‘La privatisation des entreprises publiques en Afrique noire francophone’, Afrique contemporaine (Paris), no. 143, 3/87, pp. 41–2.
‘Les privatisations en Afrique subtropicale’, Marchés Tropicaux et Méditerranéens, no. 2180, 21 August 1987, pp. 2209–10.
Nellis, op. cit., p. 45.
‘La privatisation en Afrique, une fausse solution’, Science et vie économie, August 1988, no. 38, pp. 25–31.
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Contamin, B., Fauré, YA. (1995). State Intervention in the Economy. In: Kirk-Greene, A., Bach, D. (eds) State and Society in Francophone Africa since Independence. St Antony’s/Macmillan Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23826-2_10
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