Why not Africa? – Growth and Welfare Effects of Secure Property Rights

The paper presents the long-run equilibrium and development dynamics in the neoclassical growth model and a simple model of endogenous growth when property rights are absent. The results are compared to the outcome in a corresponding model economy with secure property rights. The main findings are that there exists a considerable gain in level and growth of consumption from establishing secure property rights, that economic performance without property rights worsens with increasing number of competing groups, and that the existence, or absence of property rights explains conditional convergence.