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Abstract
The question of how to achieve rapid and sustained growth has challenged economists for generations. As Robert Lucas (1988) has famously remarked, “the consequences for human welfare involved in questions like these are staggering: once one starts to think about them, it is hard to think about anything else.” The potential contribution of economic growth to well-being has been demonstrated by the achievements of various East Asian countries over recent decades. At the same time, it is patent that not all countries have been able to replicate these successes, with economic performance in sub-Saharan African countries being of particular concern. The World Bank, for example, remarks that global poverty is increasingly coming to assume an African face owing to the “slow and erratic” rates of economic growth across the continent over the last thirty years (Ndulu, 2007). Thus, although experiences of individual countries have been diverse, the importance of understanding what may be required to promote robust economic growth in Africa cannot be overstated.
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