Growth Empirics Under Model Uncertainty: Is Africa Different?

January 1, 2005

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Format: Chicago

Charalambos G Tsangarides. Growth Empirics Under Model Uncertainty: Is Africa Different?, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2005) accessed September 18, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

This paper attempts to identify robust patterns of cross-country growth behavior in the world as a whole and Africa. It employs a novel methodology that incorporates a dynamic panel estimator, and Bayesian Model Averaging to explicitly account for model uncertainty. The findings indicate that: (i) in addition to initial conditions, various economic factors such as higher investment, lower inflation, lower government consumption, better fiscal stance, improved political environment, exogenous terms-of-trade shocks, and fixed geographical factors are robustly correlated with growth; (ii) what is good for growth around the world is, in principle, also good for growth in Africa; and (iii) political and institutional variables are particularly important in explaining African growth.

Subject: Debt service, External debt, Government consumption, Income, Labor, National accounts, Population and demographics, Population growth

Keywords: Africa, Africa sample, Bayesian model averaging, Civil war, Country's authorities, Debt service, Dynamic panel estimation, Economic growth, Government consumption, Growth determinant, Growth regressions, Income, Land market, Panel data systems GMM estimator, Physical capital, Population growth, Repayment ability, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

33
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2005/018
Stock No:

WPIEA2005018
ISBN:

9781451860375
ISSN:

1018-5941

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