Item — HN Reader

As barry-cotter said, no.

From 1961 to 2015 (http://www.worldeconomics.com/papers/Global%20Growth%20Monit...), real GDP per capita in Africa grew by 1.1% annually (!), compared to 3.9% for Asia, 1.7% for the Americas, and 2.2% for Europe. Growth from 2001 to 2010 of 2.9% is included in that figure; it was the first decade in that period in which Africa outgrew any other continent.

GDP per capita in US 1990 dollars (http://www.worldeconomics.com/Data/MadisonHistoricalGDP/Madi...) for several African countries:

  Country      | 1980 |  2008
  -------------|------|------
  Algeria      | 3152 |  3520
  Botswana     | 1765 |  4769
  Cameroon     | 1192 |  1212
  Gabon        | 6777 |  3811
  Ivory Coast  | 2041 |  1095
  Kenya        | 1051 |  1098
  Liberia      | 1162 |   802
  Madagacar    | 1054 |   730
  Malawi       |  630 |   744
  Mauritius    | 4367 | 14529
  Niger        |  810 |   514
  Nigeria      | 1305 |  1524
  Seychelles   | 4444 |  6109
  South Africa | 4390 |  4793
  Zimbabwe     | 1295 |   779

For every Mauritius, Botswana, and Seychelles there is a Zimbabwe, Niger, and Ivory Coast.

1 comments

Thanks for getting so numbers.

But why do you agree with the comment saying real GDP per capita in Africa hasn't increased in the same sentence that you say it has increased (by 1.1% annually)?

(Though a slight wrinkle is that your sentence talks about GDP and the original comment was about wealth.)

And I know that 1.1% isn't great. But it's bigger than zero. And compared to humanities historical average before the industrial revolution of basically 0%, 1.1% is enormous.

The much vaunted industrial revolution had Britain at not more than 1.25%. Boring by today's standards, but absolutely game changing compared to what came before.

>But why do you agree with the comment saying real GDP per capita in Africa hasn't increased in the same sentence that you say it has increased (by 1.1% annually)?

Because:

* 1.1% annual growth is a) terrible at any point after c. 1800, and b) sustained over decades (during which bien-pensant commentators repeatedly proclaimed that Africa was about to/already had/surely would grow at enormous speed and soon catch up with the developed world). Comparing it to the industrial revolution-era statistics is meaningless unless the rest of the world is also at that level.

* The data shows that multiple countries within Africa have regressed. Like, full on collapsed. Zimbabwe was not invaded by an outside enemy. A volcano did not destroy Madagascar's markets. Gabon's political disruptions are not unusual compared to what has happened elsewhere on the continent and in the developing world. And yet their economies have collapsed, and not in a Western-style "country x's economy is in recession" meaning of 'collapse'. Outside Africa this has not happened in such scale across multiple countries in a region/continent without some discrete factor, such as the imposition of Communism in Eastern Europe and Cuba, or the Maoist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. And even Eastern Europe and Cuba, while far poorer than they would be without Communism in their history, are better off than the Ivory Coast.

OK, we agree on the facts.

I'm just more pedantic and count a terrible increase still as an increase.

Mostly just to be precise, so that we have words left for the situation when there's an actual decrease. Like the collapses in individual countries you mention.