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.
Keywords
Cold War; Political Alliances; Africa; Blocs; Development Clusters; Strong Nash Equilibrium; Landscape Theory;
JEL codes
- C62: Existence and Stability Conditions of Equilibrium
- C72: Noncooperative Games
- F54: Colonialism • Imperialism • Postcolonialism
- F55: International Institutional Arrangements
- N47: Africa • Oceania
- O19: International Linkages to Development • Role of International Organizations
- Y10: Data: Tables and Charts
- O57: Comparative Studies of Countries
Reference
Michel Le Breton, Paul Castañeda Dower, Gunes Gokmen, and Shlomo Weber, “Did the Cold War Produce Development Clusters in Africa?”, TSE Working Paper, n. 21-1228, June 2021, revised January 7, 2022.
See also
Published in
TSE Working Paper, n. 21-1228, June 2021, revised January 7, 2022