Africa at a Turning Point? : Growth, Aid, and External Shocks

Go, Delfin S. ; Page, John

Washington, DC : World Bank

关键词: ACCOUNTABILITY;    ADVERSE IMPACT;    AGGREGATE LEVEL;    AGGREGATE OUTPUT;    AGRICULTURE;   

DOI  :  10.1596/978-0-8213-7277-7
RP-ID  :  43976

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This book is a collection of essays thatseeks to answer three interrelated sets of questions aboutAfrica's recent growth recovery. The first set ofessays addresses questions about the drivers and durabilityof Africa's growth. How different is current economicperformance compared to Africa's long history ofboom-bust cycles? Have African countries learned to avoidpast mistakes and pursued the right policies? How much ofthe current performance depends on good luck such asfavorable commodity prices or the recovery of externalassistance and how much depends on hard-won economic policyreforms. A second set of essays looks at the role of donorflows. External assistance plays a larger role inAfrica's growth story than in any other part of thedeveloping world. As a result, the economic management ofexternal assistance is a major public policy challenge, anddonor behavior is a significant source of external risk. Thethird set of essays looks at questions arising fromcommodity price shocks especially from changes in the priceof oil. Relative to factors such as policy failures,conflicts, and natural disasters, how important arecommodity price shocks in explaining output variability inAfrican countries? Compared to the oil price shocks in the1970s, why have recent higher oil prices apparently had lessimpact on Africa's growth? Oil is also now an importantsource of revenue for several oil exporting countries inAfrica; what are the economic challenges faced by thosecountries? How should one analyze the macroeconomic anddistributional impact of external and oil price shocks? Asthe essays in this volume show, laying the policy andinstitutional basis for longer-term growth, managingvolatile commodity prices and aid flows, and turning growthin average incomes into growth in all incomes remainformidable but manageable challenges if Africa is to reachits turning point.