Sources of Economic Growth and Technology Transfer in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper provides some empirical evidence on the sources of growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Within the classical convergence framework, several macroeconomic, socio and political factors are identified as affecting the steady state growth paths of the SSA countries. The rejection of the constant technology growth rate assumption implied by the linearised Solow-Swan growth specification suggests differences in the economies' technology growth rates. An endogenous technology growth model is estimated to measure contributions of diminishing returns and technology transfer to the rate of conditional convergence in the region. The results carry important policy implications for improving the standard of living and economic growth rate of African countries. Copyright (c) 2007 The Authors; Journal compilation (c) Economic Society of South Africa 2007