Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/260330 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2021:10
Publisher: 
Lund University, School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Lund
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.
Subjects: 
Cold War
Political Alliances
Africa
Blocs
Development Clusters
Strong Nash Equilibrium
Landscape Theory
JEL: 
C62
C72
F54
F55
N47
N47
O19
O57
Y10
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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