Explaining African Economic Growth Performance: The Case of Ghana (original) (raw)

The economic success of Mauritius: lessons and policy options for Africa

Journal of Economic Policy Reform, 2009

As a sub‐Saharan country, Mauritius has been branded a success story in terms of its sustained economic growth performance, with major improvements in the living standards of its population at large over the past few decades. This paper has the objectives of revisiting this success story, essentially by analyzing the numerous policies that have been adopted, to provide insights into Africa’s policy options. The Mauritian case study demonstrates that no single dose of economic reforms may generate growth dividends to perpetuity, especially when the current economic environment differs from initial conditions.

Mauritius: Challenges of Sustained Growth

2005

Mauritius has achieved remarkable success since its independence in 1968. It has one of the highest per capita GDPs in Africa, the economy has diversified from complete dependence on the sugar crop, into textiles, then tourism, and recently information and communication services. This paper examines the factors that have contributed to this impressive growth, including macroeconomic stability, a solid institutional framework, political stability, an efficient administration, a favorable regulatory framework, and a well-developed financial system, and outlines the challenges that remain to ensure continued sustainable growth in Mauritius.

Mauritius: The Drivers of Growth – Can the Past Be Extended?

Journal of Banking and Financial Economics

Mauritius's economic performance since its independence has been called "the Mauritian miracle" and the "success of Africa" (Romer, 1992; Frankel, 2010; Stiglitz, 2011). However, the future growth potential is more uncertain. In this paper, we use growth accounting to analyze the sources of past growth and project potential ranges of future growth through 2033 under various policies. Growth averaged 4½ percent over the past 20 years. Our baseline suggests future growth rates around 3¼ percent, but growth could reach 4-5 percent with strong pro-active policies including (i) improving investment and savings rates; (ii) improving the efficiency of social spending and public enterprise reforms; (iii) investment in education and education reforms; (iii) labor market reforms; and (iv) further measures to reduce bottlenecks and increase productivity. With policies capable of generating 5 percent growth, Mauritius could reach high-income status in 2021, 4 years earlier than under the baseline.

Examining the Success of Mauritius

Historically, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to come across the island of Mauritius. It was found by the Dutch in 1598, then the French arrived in 1721, before the British established political control in 1814. Mauritius had a long history of occupations and turmoils even after independence in 1968 and makes it important to raise a question: How did Mauritius succeed in achieving economic and political development after independence despite having high levels of ethnic diversity? This paper will attempt to answer this question by focusing on the economic and political methods used.

The Economic Development of Mauritius Since Independence

This paper traces the economic development of Mauritius since independence in 1968 and stresses the important role played by such institutions as the European Economic Community (now the European Union), the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in the development process of this small island state in the Indian Ocean. However, with important changes occurring on a global scale, particularly in connection with the GATT and the Multi-Fibre Agreement, new policy challenges will have to be faced by Mauritius and are discussed in the paper.

Mauritius : an export-led economic success

1992

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Mauritius had problems of low economic growth, high unemployment and balance of payments deficits. By the late 1980s it had overcome these problems, attained a high level of economic growth and graduated to the World Bank list of middle income countries. The growth of the economy was closely related to the growth of exports. This thesis discusses the development strategies and policies adopted by the government over the last two decades. In the middle of the 1960s, the government adopted an import-substitution strategy to diversify the mono-culture sugar economy by entering manufacturing. This strategy failed to stimulate employment, reduce balance of payments deficits or to improve overall economic growth. In the early 1970s the government began to encourage exports of manufactures to overcome its difficulties. Mauritius then successfully developed labour-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing and tourism. This study identifies the major macro and mi...

The State and Economic Development:"The Success Story of Mauritius”

Government interventionism is widely acknowledged to characterize less-developed countries, but consensus is lacking as to whether it promotes economic development, and if so, how. This paper analyzes the nature of government involvement in the Mauritius model of economic development, and the emergence of a developmental state closely associated with this model. The paper argues that the Mauritian growth miracle is as a result of a proactive governmental engineering where government contributed to development success which goes in sharp contrast with other Sub-Saharan African countries where government failed to play a strong developmental role.

THE EMERGENCE OF AFRICA Processes, Drivers and Outcomes of Emergence: Case Study of Mauritius

Based on the economic success story of Mauritius during its first phase of emergence, this paper aims at providing noteworthy insights that could serve as policy lessons to many other African countries. From the legacy of a mono-crop agrarian economy at the time of independence to a diversified services-based Upper Middle Economy, Mauritius boasts itself today as one of the strongest economies in the sub-Saharan region. However, to ensure a robust growth inclusive sustainable path, while transiting to a second phase of emergence, there is much to be done to address the rather daunting socio-economic challenges which the country is currently facing. The paper actually encompasses a review of economic, social, political and institutional drivers as underpinnings of this success story and the new challenges. At present, Mauritius is viewed as a stagnating middle-income economy with a poor rating in its struggle against poverty and income inequality. The new phase of emergence can be described as the move towards a high income economy characterized by an inclusive social and economic transformation (ISET). In this vein, the paper also proposes an ISET indicator from a basic framework to track and evaluate Mauritius’s performance as far as the social and economic transformation is concerned. This indicator tries to counter balance the poor performance of socio-economic indicators, namely; poverty, income inequality and unemployment against the HDI index (which already captures per capita income and human progress in education and health sectors). In addition, an evaluation is made of the proposed reforms currently being adopted to attain a high income growth-inclusive economy. Specific policy lessons and their relevance to other African economies are highlighted. A special feature of the paper is the evaluation of entrepreneurship development and job creation, based on an analysis of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), amongst others, which could serve as an engine to promote the ISET.