The current paper, first, finds that although the post-independence growth of African economies has fallen substantially below that of other regions, this comparative evidence is less than uniform across time and countries. Second, it uncovers total factor productivity as the primary culprit...

This paper investigates the role of aid in mitigating the adverse effects of commodity export price shocks on growth in commodity-dependent countries. Using a large crosscountry dataset, we find that negative shocks matter for short-term growth, while the ex ante risk of shocks does not seem to...