Elephant Chart: The African Experience: A Comparative Analysis Using Twenty Selected Countries in Africa

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VII, Issue II, February 2020 | ISSN 2321–2705

Elephant Chart: The African Experience: A Comparative Analysis Using Twenty Selected Countries in Africa

Bassey Enya Ndem (Ph.D)¹, Abuh-Amasi, Scholastica A.², Abang, Samuel^3
1,2,3Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Calabar, P.M.B. 1115, Calabar, Nigeria

Abstract: – International and Intra-national inequality in income distribution has continued to be a topic of interest to development economists and policy makers over the past three decades. This paper presents data for national income per capita of twenty selected African countries compiled by the World Bank group over a period of twenty years. The purpose of this paper is to study critically the factors that hindered African countries at the tail of the elephant chart from growing using recalculated growth rates and time series data from the World Bank. We employed both descriptive and quantitative analysis in examining the validity of the claim by the proponents of the elephant chart, who claimed that African countries did not benefit from globalization. The selected countries were divided into four income groups – low income, lower middle income, upper middle income and high income groups as classified by the World Bank. Our findings show’s that contrary to the claim by the elephant chart authors that countries at the tail (including African countries) did not benefit from globalization. On the contrary, African countries recorded significant growth brought about by globalization.

Keywords: Globalization, income Distribution, Inequality, Elephant Chart, Growth Incidence Curve.

I. BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

In recent times, there has been a renewed interest in income inequalities across the globe. This is because researchers have found out that disparity of income between nations, different groups or within a society can have negative effects on the development of such places. Economic inequality, sometimes referred to as income inequality, is the unequal distribution of a country’s wealth. Inequality causes the under-development of a nation by causing lower long-term Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rates, poorer public health, increases political inequality, and reduces average education levels. It was this struggle to reduce or eliminate inequality in income distribution among countries of the world that led to the ground-breaking and thought-provoking discovery of Christoph Lakner and Branko Milanovic’s.

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