Economic Development under Crises
An Econometric Analysis
by
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The book, "Economic Development under Crises -- An Econometric Analysis," examines the crises that politically unstable economies face and the impact of such instability on economic development. The book begins with theoretical overview of relationship between polity and economy. The thrust of the book however is a time-series cross-section evaluation of effects of political instability on economic development of 30 sub-Saharan African countries between 1967 and 1987. First, it explores the relationship in aggregates using a pooled data, and then extends the investigation to see the specific effect on those countries whose data are obtainable for estimation. Later in the book, the analysis focuses on the disaggregation of the measure of economic development into sectors to explore the differential effects that political instability might have on each sector, by first using a pooled data, and later extend the analysis to individual countries in the sample. In the book, the proposition is to test two distinct hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that the effect of political instability on economic development is deleterious and negative. A second hypothesis, that political instability has differential effects across sectors is examined later. The first hypothesis is similar to those in other studies that have attempted to investigate the relationship between political instability and economic development even though there has been very little attention given to this type of investigation. So far, an empirical study that attempts to investigate the differential effects of political instability on the principal sectors of the economy is a relatively new area. The results may serve as guides to insulate against declining productiveness of leading sectors within an economic system.
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About the Book
The current socio-economic situation in Africa as a continent is precarious. The continent faces multiple crises that include those of religion, politics, and economics. Each crisis is significant in its own right and together they are mutually reinforcing. One begins to wonder if the leaders have the will and/or the means to put the continent on a growth trajectory and once and for all address the wide spectrum of inextricably linked development issues. While the significance of politics on religion, or vice versa is recognized, what is more crucial is the impact of politics on economy, and vice versa. This book examines the direction of causality and finds that political instability perpetuates underdevelopment among other things. It is also interesting to discover that the deleterious effect of political instability is different across sectors. The reader will also observe that a few countries may have benefited from some degree of instability.
About the Author
Henry Akintunde is an adjunct professor of Economics at Long Island University and teaches "Problems of Economic Development" to graduate students in the United Nations Certificate Program. Over the years he has concentrated on examining various policy options that may lead to sustainable development of sub-Saharan economies. He founded an NGO think-tank , "The Vine Group USA" to explore the respective impact of variables such as political instability, quality education, gender equality on capacity building and poverty reduction processes. In addition, to correctly measure the impact of quality education overtime, he established a model elementary and secondary school, "The SMART School"in Nigeria that is comparable to any public school in New York. At the tertiary level, he believes that library restoration directly impacts quality education, to this end, his organization has provided millions of dollars worth of technological equipment, textbooks, and scholarships and grants to universities in Nigeria, Ghana, and Malawi. Professor Akintunde is a graduate of University of North Alabama, Long Island University, and The Graduate Faculty of New School University.