Economic Policy in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities

DEV 356 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The goal of this semester-long course is to understand the economic development trajectory of African countries by examining their challenges and opportunities. The course aims to disentangle the factors driving — or impeding — structural transformation, and to assess what, if anything, is distinctive about the African experience. Drawing on successive waves of development economics and a broad base of empirical evidence, it evaluates the major narratives that have shaped interpretations of the continent's development.

The course is organized along five modules: (i) an introductory section on the sources, patterns, and quality of economic growth across the continent since independence; (ii) a historical overview of comparative economic performance — Africa against other developing regions — with focus on the weight of history, initial conditions, development strategies, institutions, and policies; (iii) an examination of failed and successful experiments in economic development, with emphasis on patterns and pace of economic diversification, the respective roles of the state, the private sector, and civil society, and strategies for formal-sector employment creation; (iv) the political economy of policymaking in the African context, including the financing frameworks of African economies and the roles of foreign aid and foreign direct investment — idiosyncrasies, commonalities, and innovative approaches across sub-regions will be analyzed throughout; and (v) an evaluation of Africa's recent performance across multiple dimensions of structural change, the remaining challenges, and the continent's economic prospects and opportunities in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, technological innovation, artificial intelligence, and the ongoing debate over the costs and benefits of globalization.