This essay investigates the determinants of the growth performance of Africa. I start by illustrating a broader … institutional development. After reporting results from standard growth regressions, I analyze the role of Africa’s peculiar history … influence, in and out of Africa, of the slave trades. The essay ends with critical conclusions and suggestions for further …

We explore the determinants of state fragility in sub-Saharan Africa. Controlling for a wide range of economic …, demographic, geographic and institutional regressors, we find that institutions, and in particular the civil liberties index and … institutions are accounted for. …

-specific pre-colonial institutions in shaping comparative regional development in Africa. We utilize information on the spatial … different country-level institutions, offers a regression discontinuity framework. After identifying the partitioned ethnicities … we document a positive cross-sectional association between national institutions and regional economic development …

We investigate the role of national institutions on regional development in a novel framework. We exploit the fact that … institutions. Using both a matching-type and a regression discontinuity approach we show that differences in countrywide … correlation between formal national institutions and economic development has to be carefully interpreted. …

We investigate the role of deeply-rooted pre-colonial ethnic institutions in shaping comparative regional development … ethnic homelands with different legacies of pre-colonial political institutions. …

, where due to population mixing and the salience of national institutions ethnic traits play a lesser role. Overall, our … evidence is supportive to theories and narratives on the presence of a "dual" economic and institutional environment in Africa. …

because typically in Africa, ‘good economics’ has proved not to be politically feasible. In this Paper we suggest that good … policies were chosen in Botswana because good institutions, which we refer to as institutions of private property, were in … place. Why did institutions of private property arise in Botswana, but not other African nations? We conjecture that the …