Independent research & practical ideas for global prosperity

Low Investment is Not the Constraint on
African Development - Working Paper 13

Shantayanan Devarajan, William R. Easterly and Howard Pack

10/23/2002

While many analysts decry the lack of sufficient investment in Africa, we find no evidence that private and public investment are productive, either in Africa as a whole (unless Botswana is included in the sample), or in the manufacturing sector in Tanzania. In this restricted sense, inadequate investment is not the major obstacle to African economic development.