Why Not Africa? - Growth and Welfare Effects of Secure Property Rights

This paper presents the long-run equilibrium and development dynamics in the neoclassical growth model and a simple model of endogenous growth when property rights are absent. The results are compared to the outcome in a corresponding model with secure property rights. The main findings are that there exists a considerable gain in level and growth of consumption from establishing secure property rights, that economic performance without property rights worsens with an increasing number of competing social groups, and that the existence or absence of property rights explains conditional convergence