It is the irony of human nature, and indeed the incentive mechanism inherent in social institutions, that some societies less endowed by nature strive harder to improve their collective lot, and in many instances succeed in achieving their development objectives more frequently than their...

1. Background -- 2. The Africa Precolonial Social, Political and Economic Development -- 3. Post-Independence Politics in Africa -- 4. Technology and Deindustrialisation -- 5. Education and Labour -- 6. Economy and Agriculture -- 7. Infrastructure -- 8. Corruption and Under-development in Africa...

This paper is a first step toward a more fundamental theory of political economy outcomes. We start from the fundamentals of the economy, given by preferences and technology; further, we specify all available technologies for the control of resources — such as armed forces or bribing. We model...