Search

An easy way of observing and predicting changes in the structure and behavior of any free-market economy is to track changes in its circular flow model of economic activity. Using book titles as a literature review in combinations with a few classics, I describe how the circular flows of free -market economies evolved from little, gentle, and now nearly powerless government role, culminating in super-duper capitalism. First the evolution generated great wealth and income, and of late also increasing inequality. Processes like globalization that allowed for economic convergence also spurred enormous tensions. The resulting stresses and strains are responsible for unpopular populism and nationalism. The doughnut economic model provides a reasonable framework for explaining what we observe. It shows a decline in the social foundations of human rights, made worse by breaches in the “planetary boundaries” both of which squeeze the livable space ever more tightly like a boa-constrictor suffocating its prey. In this paper I do not go as far as measuring my observations, but the directions for policy and future research have clearly been established. Regarding the latter, one may want to examine how COVID19 has shocked into scurrying towards a delusion of a system that was already slouching towards an illusion. It turns out that the illusion is not a new prediction. In his critique of Marx and rationalization of Kondratieff’s waves (K-waves) Schumpeter predicted that capitalism as an innovation is not immune to the “gale of creative destruction.”Keywords. Circular flow model, Doughnut economic model, Social foundations of human rights, Inclusive and sustainable development, Planetary limits, Unpopular populism, Super-duper capitalism.JEL. O47, O33, E19, Z0.

This paper develops a framework (a) to examine whether or not the African business e nvironment hinders or promotes the knowledge economy (KE), (b) to determine how the KE affects econom ic performance, and (c) how economic performance relates to the inequality-adjusted human socioeconomic development (IHDI) of 53 African countries during the 1996-2010 time period. We estimate the linkages with three related equations. The results support a strong correlation between the dynamics of st arting and doing business and variations in KE. The results also show that there exists a weak link between KE and economic performance. Nonetheless, KE-influenced performance plays a more important role i n socioeconomic development than some of the conventional control variables like foreign direct investment (FDI), foreign aid, and even private investment.

GDP remains too much of an imprecise measure of the standard of living. There is a need for either substitutes or complements. Nighttime lights are a reasonable indicator of the extent, scale, and intensity of socio-economic activities, but a poor measure of national welfare. However, if nighttime lights are understood to constitute externalities, then their effects can be used to adjust measured growth for welfare. From that angle, nighttime lights appear to exert sub-optimal positive externalities in developing countries, and supra-optimal negative externality in developed countries. This means that even if we assume equal growth rates in developing and developed countries, welfare is enhanced by increasing nighttime lights in developing countries and reduced by increasing nighttime lights in developed countries.Keywords. Artificial lights and economic growth, Nighttime lights and growth, Growth and welfare, Nighttime lights and real well-being (welfare).JEL. H23, O15, D62, I12, O47, I31, R13, Q52.

We argue that there exists an indirect link between globalization and the knowledge economy of African countries in which globalization influences ‘peace and stability’ and peace and stability affects governance, and through governance the knowledge economy. We model the link as a three-stage process in four testable hypotheses, which permits an empirical analysis without sacrificing economic relevance for statistical significance. The results indicate that the impacts on governance of peace and stability from globalization defined as trade are stronger than those of peace and stability resulting from globalization taken to be foreign direct investment. We conclude that foreign direct investment is not a powerful mechanism for stimulating and sustaining the African knowledge. However, since the effects of globalization on peace and stability can influence governance both positively and negatively, we also conclude that the prospect for the knowledge economy in African countries may be realistic and attainable, as long as these countries continue to engage in the kind of globalization that enhances peace and stability.

One of the key economic development challenges facing Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is its low agricultural productivity. Governments, donors, and foreign investors have underinvested in African agriculture even though research evidence shows that higher agricultural productivity would boost economic growth and poverty reduction. Solutions to the problem require a number of interconnected strategies, including, but not limited to, research on seeds and inputs, extension services, rural development, credit, institutional, and trade and price stabilization policies. We use the system two-step Generalized Method of Moments to examine whether official development assistance (ODA) for agriculture and rural development is helping to boost agricultural productivity. We find a positive relationship between ODA and agricultural productivity. However, when broken down into the main agricultural ODA recipient sectors, there is a substitution effect between food crop production and industrial crop production. While there exists a positive relationship between ODA for industrial and export crops output per worker (agricultural productivity), ODA for food crops has a negative relationship. Better public institutions and economic freedom are also found to enable agricultural productivity growth and to increase the ODA effectiveness. We correct the results for spurious correlation assuming that more ODA might be allocated where agricultural productivity is already increasing due to some other factors. Concerning the determinants of ODA allocation, we find that the allocation of ODA for agriculture is primarily determined by agricultural need, and that the expected effectiveness increases the ODA receipts. Finally, there is a weak ODA-led structural economic change effect in SSA. Labor released from agriculture to the urban sector(s) has a positive market effect on agriculture but is not engendering significant structural economic transformation.