Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- List of Acronyms
- PART ONE OVERVIEW
- 1 Ghana's Economy at Half Century: An Overview of Stability, Growth & Poverty
- 2 What Drives Change in Ghana?
- 3 Ghana's Post-Independence Economic Growth 1960–2000
- PART TWO MACROECONOMY, TRADE & FINANCE
- PART THREE POVERTY, EDUCATION & HEALTH
- Index
2 - What Drives Change in Ghana?
from PART ONE - OVERVIEW
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- List of Acronyms
- PART ONE OVERVIEW
- 1 Ghana's Economy at Half Century: An Overview of Stability, Growth & Poverty
- 2 What Drives Change in Ghana?
- 3 Ghana's Post-Independence Economic Growth 1960–2000
- PART TWO MACROECONOMY, TRADE & FINANCE
- PART THREE POVERTY, EDUCATION & HEALTH
- Index
Summary
Introduction
President Clinton famously had the slogan, ‘It's the economy, stupid’, hanging in the Oval Office as a constant reminder to himself of what his priority should be in order to keep the American electorate on his side. Giving priority to the population's economic well-being is good advice to all democratic politicians, but I shall argue that, if we want to understand the half-century of the Ghanaian economy's experiences, we should invert Clinton's priority and pay most attention to institutions and politics. The mantra for economists trying to understand the performance of Ghana's economy should be, ‘It's the polity …’ [readers to supply their own epithet].
Clark Leith's (2004) provides an excellent foundation on which my paper can build. Taking his review of the economic record as the starting point, the initial premises here are that:
There has been real economic progress in Ghana since the early 1980s. The last two decades have produced the most sustained and consistent period of growth of the last half-century. This is no mean achievement, and there are no grounds for a habit of pessimism.
But the progress made has been less than brilliant. Weaknesses have persisted. The economic structure has remained rather rigid. Much of the economy would still have to be described as pre-modern, and technological progress has been slow.
[…]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Economy of GhanaAnalytical Perspectives on Stability, Growth and Poverty, pp. 20 - 35Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008