The Comparative Inclusive Human Development of Globalisation in Africa

This study examines the impact of globalisation on inclusive human development in 51 African countries for the period 1996-2011 with particular emphasis on income levels (low income versus middle income), legal origins (English common law versus French civil law), resource wealth (oil-rich versus oil-poor), landlockedness (landlocked versus unlandlocked), religious domination (Christianity versus Islam) and political stability (stable versus unstable). The empirical evidence is based on instrumental variable panel Fixed effects and Tobit regressions in order to control for the unobserved heteroegeneity and limited range in the dependent variable. Political, economic, social and general globalisation variables are used. Six main hypotheses are investigated. The findings broadly show that middle income, English common law, oil-poor, unlandlocked, Christian-oriented and politically-stable countries are associated with comparatively higher levels of globalisation-driven inclusive human development. Puzzling findings are elucidated and policy implications discussed.