Never been industrialized: A tale of African structural change

•Structural change in Africa has taken place without industrialization.•The average African countries specialize over almost its entire development path.•The value added from declining agriculture feeds primarily into services.•Leapfrogging industrialization is not necessarily what causes slow growth.•Shift from agriculture to non-manufacturing industry is negative for growth.

Africa is a case of structural change without industrialization and without diversification. Agriculture's decline was matched by an increase in services and non-manufacturing industry, with manufacturing remaining low and stagnant throughout the post-colonial period. To what extent do these patterns of structural change account for the weak growth dynamics observed in the continent? We provide evidence that what is damaging for growth in Africa is not the expansion in services, but rather the reallocation of economic activity from agriculture to non-manufacturing industry. Because non-manufacturing industry is mainly mining, our results point to a form of resource curse.