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There has been a recent surge in research on long-term African development. For this research agenda to be fruitful and its theories tested, it is crucial to have consistent estimates of economic change. However, there is a lack of reliable time series data for the colonial period in Sub-Saharan Africa. This article contributes new time series data for the Gold Coast and Ghana between 1890 and 201
African trade statistics suffer from errors of commission and omission. A quarter-century ago, Alexander Yeats (1990) compared receipts of importers and exporters and concluded that the data could not be used to determine the magnitude, direction, or composition of trade. The only fact to be safely deduced from the evidence was that the statistics were plagued by widespread smuggling and/or underr
Measurement is increasingly at the centre of debates in African economic development. Some remarkable upward revisions of GDP, which are signs of statistical systems improving, caused the declaration of a statistical tragedy in Africa. This special issue evaluates the database for African economic development with articles on the quality of the data on GDP, health and education, poverty, labour, a
The quality of economic statistics in Africa has been likened to a statistical tragedy. Currently many statistical systems in Africa are being updated. This report from the statistical offices in Nigeria, Liberia and Zimbabwe documents that base year, data and methods used to generate GDP estimates currently date from 1990, 1992 and 1994. There is a growing need for macroeconomic statistics, but a
Coordinating aid distribution to the poorest countries requires identifying which countries are poor. In practice this has meant sorting countries into developmental cohorts on the basis of macroeconomic data, with countries in poorer cohorts gaining access to more and more concessional aid programs. To the extent that governments can influence their macroeconomic data, some, especially those in a
In this article, we experimentally demonstrate a way of controlling the group velocity of an optical pulse by using a combination of spectral hole burning, the slow-light effect, and the linear Stark effect in a rare-earth-ion-doped crystal. The group velocity can be changed continuously by a factor of 20 without significant pulse distortion or absorption of the pulse energy. With a similar techni
One of the most urgent challenges in African economic development is to devise a strategy for improving statistical capacity. Reliable statistics, including estimates of economic growth rates and per-capita income, are basic to the operation of governments in developing countries and vital to nongovernmental organizations and other entities that provide financial aid to them. Rich countries and in
How do we measure African economic performance? This volume studies how growth is measured in Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia and challenges commonly held beliefs of African economic performance. The volume offers a reconsideration of economic growth in Africa in three respects. First, it shows that the focus has been on average economic growth and that there has been no failure of economic g
