Does Africa grow slower than Asia, Latin America and the Middle East? Evidence from a new data-based classification method

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Paap, R; Franses, PH; van Dijk, D
• 署名单位: Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2004.05.001
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 553-570
• 关键词: economic growth; panel time series; Latent class models

摘要

We address the question whether sub-Saharan African countries have lower average growth rates in real GDP per capita than countries in Asia, Latin and Middle America and the Middle East. In contrast to previous studies, countries are no a priori assigned to clusters based on geographical location. Instead, we propose a latent-class panel time series model, which allows a data-based classification of countries into clusters such that within a cluster countries have the same average growth rate. Our empirical results suggest that three clusters are sufficient to describe the different growth paths. Twenty-six African countries belong to the low growth cluster, but 8 African countries show growth rates comparable with many countries in Asia, Latin and Middle America and the Middle East. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.