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Did the Cold War Produce Development Clusters in Africa?

Castaneda Dower, Paul ; Gokmen, Gunes LU ; Le Breton, Michel and Weber, Shlomo (2021) In Working Papers
Abstract
This paper examines the lasting impact of the alignment of African countries during the Cold War on their modern economic development. We find that the division of the continent into two blocs (East/West) led to two clusters of development outcomes that reflect the Cold War’s ideological divide. To determine alignment, we introduce a non-cooperative game of social interactions where each country chooses one of the two existing blocs based on its predetermined bilateral similarities with other members of the bloc. We show the existence of a strong Nash equilibrium in our game and apply the celebrated MaxCut method to identify such a partition. The alignment predicts UN General Assembly voting patterns during the Cold War but not after. Our... (More)
This paper examines the lasting impact of the alignment of African countries during the Cold War on their modern economic development. We find that the division of the continent into two blocs (East/West) led to two clusters of development outcomes that reflect the Cold War’s ideological divide. To determine alignment, we introduce a non-cooperative game of social interactions where each country chooses one of the two existing blocs based on its predetermined bilateral similarities with other members of the bloc. We show the existence of a strong Nash equilibrium in our game and apply the celebrated MaxCut method to identify such a partition. The alignment predicts UN General Assembly voting patterns during the Cold War but not after. Our approach, linking global political interdependence to distinct development paths in Africa, relies on history to extract a micro-founded treatment assignment, while allowing for an endogenous, process-oriented view of historical events. (Less)
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author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Cold War, Political Alliances, Africa, Blocs, Development Clusters, Strong Nash Equilibrium, Landscape Theory, C62, C72, F54, F55, N47, O19, O57, Y10
in
Working Papers
issue
2021:10
pages
72 pages
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
eab0d657-24b9-461e-afe0-1b107369c6e5
date added to LUP
2021-06-30 11:37:17
date last changed
2024-03-14 13:26:34
@misc{eab0d657-24b9-461e-afe0-1b107369c6e5,
  abstract     = {{This paper examines the lasting impact of the alignment of African countries during the Cold War on their modern economic development. We find that the division of the continent into two blocs (East/West) led to two clusters of development outcomes that reflect the Cold War’s ideological divide. To determine alignment, we introduce a non-cooperative game of social interactions where each country chooses one of the two existing blocs based on its predetermined bilateral similarities with other members of the bloc. We show the existence of a strong Nash equilibrium in our game and apply the celebrated MaxCut method to identify such a partition. The alignment predicts UN General Assembly voting patterns during the Cold War but not after. Our approach, linking global political interdependence to distinct development paths in Africa, relies on history to extract a micro-founded treatment assignment, while allowing for an endogenous, process-oriented view of historical events.}},
  author       = {{Castaneda Dower, Paul and Gokmen, Gunes and Le Breton, Michel and Weber, Shlomo}},
  keywords     = {{Cold War; Political Alliances; Africa; Blocs; Development Clusters; Strong Nash Equilibrium; Landscape Theory; C62; C72; F54; F55; N47; O19; O57; Y10}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{2021:10}},
  series       = {{Working Papers}},
  title        = {{Did the Cold War Produce Development Clusters in Africa?}},
  url          = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/177103288/WP21_10.pdf}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}