Who Can Explain The Mauritian Miracle: Meade, Romer, Sachs or Rodrik?
IMF Working Papers, August 1, 2001
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- Who Can Explain The Mauritian Miracle: Meade, Romer, Sachs or Rodrik?
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Bibliographic details
- Authors: Arvind Subramanian, Devesh Roy
- Published: August 1, 2001
- Series: IMF Working Papers
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781451853933.001
Summary
- This paper examines different explanations—initial conditions, openness to trade and FDI, and institutions—of the Mauritian growth experience since the mid-1970s.
- Arguments based on openness to trade and FDI are either misleading or incomplete, and the transmission mechanism insufficiently identified.
- Even when correctly articulated, openness appears to be a proximate rather than an underlying explanation for the Mauritian experience.
- The institution-based explanation offers greater promise.
- Ultimately, econometric results indicate that existing explanations may be incomplete.
- Some idiosyncratic factors, particularly Mauritian diversity and the responses to managing it, may provide the missing pieces in the story of Mauritius's success.
Key Findings and Analysis
- Openness to trade and FDI:
- Shown to be either misleading or incomplete as explanations.
- Transmission mechanisms are insufficiently identified in existing arguments.
- When correctly articulated, openness is characterized as proximate rather than underlying.
- Institutions:
- Offer greater promise as an explanatory framework for Mauritius’s growth experience.
- Econometric evidence:
- Indicates that existing explanations (initial conditions, openness, institutions) may not fully account for the Mauritian miracle.
- Idiosyncratic factors:
- Mauritian diversity and the policy responses to managing diversity are highlighted as potential missing elements in the explanatory story.
Thematic Context and Keywords
- Subject areas: Agricultural commodities, Commodities, Exports, Imports, International trade, Tariffs, Taxes, Trade policy
- Keywords include: Africa, Agricultural commodities, Caribbean, cash cow, demographic inheritance, East Asia, EPZ wage, Exports, G. export processing zone, geography, growth, growth performance, Imports, institutions, Mauritian miracle, Mauritius, Mauritius from apparel export, Mauritius' Openness strategy, Mauritius' success, openness, openness strategy, openness to FDI, sources of growth, Sub-Saharan Africa, Tariffs, trade performance, Trade policy, trade policy regime, trading partners, WP
Source: Arvind Subramanian and Devesh Roy, "Who Can Explain The Mauritian Miracle: Meade, Romer, Sachs or Rodrik?", IMF Working Papers 2001, 116 (August 1, 2001).