[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/unu/wpaper/wp-2011-019.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Does Lack of Innovation and Absorptive Capacity Retard Economic Growth in Africa?

Author

Listed:
  • Steve Onyeiwu
Abstract
This paper reviews the innovative capabilities and absorptive capacities of African countries, and investigates whether they have played significant roles in the region's slow and episodic economic growth. Results from cross-country regressions covering 31 Sub-Saharan African countries suggest that growth in Africa is not simply a question of capital accumulation, fertility rates, aid dependency, and stable macroeconomic environment. It is also about strengthening the capacity of African countries to assimilate and effectively use knowledge and technology.

Suggested Citation

  • Steve Onyeiwu, 2011. "Does Lack of Innovation and Absorptive Capacity Retard Economic Growth in Africa?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-019, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    • Handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2011-019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2011-019.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. F. M. Scherer, 1986. "Innovation and Growth: Schumpeterian Perspectives," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262691027, April.
    3. Romain Wacziarg & Karen Horn Welch, 2008. "Trade Liberalization and Growth: New Evidence," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 22(2), pages 187-231, June.
    4. Sanjaya Lall & Giorgio Barba Navaretti & Simón Teitel & Ganeshan Wignaraja, 1994. "Technology and Enterprise Development," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-13925-5, October.
    5. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    6. Amsden, Alice H., 1997. "Editorial: Bringing production back in -- Understanding Government's economic role in late industrialization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 469-480, January.
    7. Devarajan, Shantayanan & Easterly, William R & Pack, Howard, 2003. "Low Investment Is Not the Constraint on African Development," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 51(3), pages 547-571, April.
    8. John Sender, 1999. "Africa's Economic Performance: Limitations of the Current Consensus," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 89-114, Summer.
    9. T. Paul Schultz, 1999. "Health and Schooling Investments in Africa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 67-88, Summer.
    10. M. Ram�rez, 2000. "Foreign Direct Investment in Mexico: A Cointegration Analysis," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 138-162, October.
    11. Benno J. Ndulu & Stephen A. O'Connell, 1999. "Governance and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 41-66, Summer.
    12. Yun-Chung Chen, 2008. "Why Do Multinational Corporations Locate Their Advanced R&D Centres in Beijing?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(5), pages 622-644.
    13. World Bank, 2002. "World Development Indicators 2002," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13921.
    14. Krueger, Anne O, 1997. "Trade Policy and Economic Development: How We Learn," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 1-22, March.
    15. Levine, Ross & Renelt, David, 1992. "A Sensitivity Analysis of Cross-Country Growth Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 942-963, September.
    16. Schneider, Friedrich & Frey, Bruno S., 1985. "Economic and political determinants of foreign direct investment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 161-175, February.
    17. Lai, Mingyong & Peng, Shuijun & BAO, Qun, 2006. "Technology spillovers, absorptive capacity and economic growth," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 300-320.
    18. Pack, Howard, 1993. "Productivity and industrial development in sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1-16, January.
    19. KH Zhang, 2001. "Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Economic Growth? Evidence From East Asia And Latin America," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 19(2), pages 175-185, April.
    20. Paul Collier & Jan Willem Gunning, 1999. "Why Has Africa Grown Slowly?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    21. Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, B. & Laditan, G. O. A. & Esubiyi, A. O., 1996. "Industrial innovation in Sub-Saharan Africa: the manufacturing sector in Nigeria," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(7), pages 1081-1096, October.
    22. Augustin Kwasi Fosu, 2009. "Understanding the African Growth Record: The Importance of Policy Syndromes and Governance," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2009-02, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    23. Avik Chakrabarti, 2001. "The Determinants of Foreign Direct Investments: Sensitivity Analyses of Cross‐Country Regressions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(1), pages 89-114, February.
    24. Pack, Howard & Westphal, Larry E., 1986. "Industrial strategy and technological change : Theory versus reality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 87-128, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Das, Gouranga, 2010. "Globalization, socio-institutional factors and North–South knowledge diffusion: Role of India and China as Southern growth progenitors," MPRA Paper 37252, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Aug 2011.
    2. Das, Gouranga Gopal, 2015. "Why some countries are slow in acquiring new technologies? A model of trade-led diffusion and absorption," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 65-91.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steve Onyeiwu, 2011. "Does Lack of Innovation and Absorptive Capacity Retard Economic Growth in Africa?," WIDER Working Paper Series 019, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Mahmud, Hassan, 2008. "Why has Growth slowed in Sub-Saharan Africa: A System GMM-IV Approach," MPRA Paper 25910, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Steve Onyeiwu & Hemanta Shrestha, 2004. "Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Africa," Journal of Developing Societies, , vol. 20(1-2), pages 89-106, June.
    4. Gene M. Grossman & Elhanan Helpman, 1994. "Endogenous Innovation in the Theory of Growth," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 23-44, Winter.
    5. Tomasz Brodzicki, 2017. "The Role of Openness in Regional Economic Growth. The Case of Polish and Spanish NUTS-2 Regions," Collegium of Economic Analysis Annals, Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis, issue 47, pages 43-64.
    6. Chen, Baizhu & Feng, Yi, 2000. "Determinants of economic growth in China: Private enterprise, education, and openness," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15.
    7. Miljkovic, Dragan & Rimal, Arbindra, 2008. "The impact of socio-economic factors on political instability: A cross-country analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2454-2463, December.
    8. Rivera, Sandra A. & Tsigas, Marinos E., 2005. "How does China’s growth affect India? An Economywide Analysis," Conference papers 331359, Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project.
    9. V. Heinrich Amavilah, 2003. "Meditating on "Slow Growth in Africa" - New Evidence or Just Ol' Stuff?," Development and Comp Systems 0307003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Rendón Obando, Hernando & Ramírez Franco, Luz Dary, 2017. "Impacto de la inversión extranjera directa y del grado de apertura de la economía sobre el crecimiento económico para América Latina 1980-2010/Impact of Foreign Direct Investment and Openness Degree o," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 35, pages 217-244, Enero.
    11. Nihal Bayraktar, 2019. "Effectiveness of public investment on growth in sub-Saharan Africa," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 9(4), pages 421-457, December.
    12. Danquah, Michael & Ouattara, Bazoumana, 2015. "What drives national efficiency in sub-Saharan Africa," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 171-179.
    13. B. Bhaskara Rao & Arusha Cooray, 2012. "How useful is growth literature for policies in the developing countries?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(6), pages 671-681, February.
    14. Kevin S. Nell & A.P. Thirlwall, 2017. "Why does the productivity of investment vary across countries?," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 70(282), pages 213-245.
    15. Irwan Shah Zainal Abidin & Nor Aznin Abu Bakar & Muhammad Haseeb, 2014. "An Empirical Analysis of Exports between Malaysia and TPP Member Countries: Evidence from a Panel Cointegration (FMOLS) Model," Modern Applied Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(6), pages 238-238, December.
    16. Kostakis, Ioannis & Lolos, Sarantis & Doulgeraki, Charikleia, 2020. "Cultural Heritage led Growth: Regional evidence from Greece (1998-2016)," MPRA Paper 98443, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 2002. "It´s Not Factor Accumulation: Stylized Facts and Growth Models," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 3, pages 061-114, Central Bank of Chile.
    18. Åsa Johansson, 2016. "Public Finance, Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of the Evidence," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1346, OECD Publishing.
    19. Nicholas Apergis & Christina Christou & Stephen Miller, 2012. "Convergence patterns in financial development: evidence from club convergence," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 1011-1040, December.
    20. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Kotschy, Rainer & Prettner, Klaus & Schünemann, Johannes, 2024. "Health and economic growth: Reconciling the micro and macro evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2011-019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Siméon Rapin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/widerfi.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.