Comparing African and Asian Economic Development

Abstract

The World Bank website devoted to economic growth research has a graph showing the path of East Asian and sub-Saharan African GDP per capita since 1960. Beginning from a relatively small gap, the picture is one of continued divergence thereafter. The obvious question to ask is why is there this increasing gap? What is it about sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) which makes its performance so different from Asia since 1960? The papers collected in this volume address these questions from three different standpoints. The majority of them compare particular aspects of economic behaviour in the two continents. Another group of papers examine potential lessons for Africa that might be learned from Asian, mainly East Asian, development. Finally, two of the papers address the issue of convergence and divergence between the two country groups.