Regime type and economic growth in Africa: A cross-national analysis

Does regime type influence economic growth in Africa? This paper examines the relationship between political regimes and economic growth. More specifically, I investigate the economic performances of authoritarian and democratic systems in 44 African countries during the 1990s. Employing ordinary least squares (OLS) estimators and a cross-sectional research design and controlling for variables like economic development, domestic investment, economic openness, privatization, and education, I test the foregoing hypothesis. I find that the influence of regime type has some but not strong impact on African economic growth. One control variable that, for the most part, has a statistically significant influence on economic growth in Africa is domestic investment.