Unified Growth Theory Contradicted by the Economic Growth in Africa

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the Unified Growth Theory using African economic data, revealing significant contradictions that challenge the theory's assumptions about growth regimes and their timing across different development levels.

Contribution

The paper provides a detailed analysis of African economic data, demonstrating contradictions to the Unified Growth Theory's postulates about growth regimes and their timing.

Findings

African data contradicts the three-regime growth model

Timing of growth regimes differs from the theory's assumptions

Data analysis challenges the universality of the theory

Abstract

One of the fundamental postulates of the Unified Growth Theory is the claimed existence of three distinctly different regimes of economic growth governed by three distinctly different mechanisms of growth. However, Galor also proposed that the timing of these regimes is different for developed countries and for less-developed countries. Africa is the perfect example of economic growth in less-developed countries. The data used by Galor, but never properly investigated, are now analysed. They turn out to be in dramatic contradiction of this theory.