As poor policies are blamed for dismal economic outcomes in many African countries and institutions and governance have assumed greater importance in explaining policy making, this article overviews a set of papers appearing in the current volume on 'institutions, governance and economic...

This article presents an overview of the current special issue Institutions and African Economies. The findings include: (1) greater prevalence of democratic regimes improved both agricultural productivity and the overall growth of African economies, consistent with "new institutionalism"; (2)...

Recent evidence from an exhaustive political-economy study of growth of African economies—the Growth Project of the African Economic Research Consortium—suggests that ‘policy syndromes’ have substantially contributed to the generally poor growth in Sub-Saharan Africa during...

We build a data set on financial and human capital flight for 48 countries for the period 1970--98 and analyse capital flight as a portfolio choice. Financial capital flight is measured as the stock of capital flight relative to domestically held private net wealth and human capital flight as...

After briefly reviewing the new institutionalism, this article uses the history of political reform in Africa to test its key tenet: that power, if properly organised, is a productive resource. It does so by exploring the relationship between changes in political institutions and changes in...

After briefly reviewing the new institutionalism, this article uses the history of political reform in Africa to test its key tenet: �that power, if properly organised, is a productive resource. It does so by exploring the relationship between changes in political institutions and changes in...