DO COMMON GLOBAL ECONOMIC FACTORS MATTER FOR AFRICA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH?

Empirical research has generally attributed the dismal performance of Africa's economic growth to country-specific socio-economic and geo-political factors. This paper shows that while country-specific issues matter for Africa's economic growth, common global economic factors do matter as well. The importance of common global economic factors has been augmented by increased globalization, the introduction of the World Trade Organization and the current global economic crisis. Using system GMM panel data techniques that extend previous literature on Africa's growth, the estimation results provide new insights into the positive relationship between the world business cycle and the growth rates of African countries. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]