New wine in old wineskins? Growth, terrorism and the resource curse in sub-Saharan Africa

Since 1995, growth in sub-Saharan Africa has averaged more than 5% per year reversing a two-decade decline of real income per capita. In this paper, we explore the extent to which the nascent growth is sustainable or not due to higher incidences of terrorism and commodity price declines. Our analysis is based on a rich unbalanced panel data set with annual observations on 46 countries from 1968 to 2004. We explore these data with cross-sectional and panel growth regression analysis and quantile regressions. We estimate the economic and statistical effect of terrorism on growth in sub-Saharan Africa, controlling for a variety of other factors. We then investigate the extent to which there appears to be a structural break in the estimated relationships. We find that the terrorist-oriented fragility of sub-Sahara has increased in the most recent period. We find that most of the fragility can be explained by the growth in countries that are primary fuel exporters. Indeed, our evidence points to the fact that resource-rich countries have not done an adequate job of investing in counter-terrorist policies.

▶ We estimate the economic effect of terrorism on growth in sub-Saharan Africa. ▶ We find that the terrorist-oriented fragility of Africa has increased post 1995. ▶ Most of the fragility is explained by growth in countries that are fuel exporters.