Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP18535
Authors: Ewout Frankema
Abstract: The Great Divergence debate has been the leading dialogue in economic history in the past 25 years. This review article explores new comparative horizons in global economic history. I argue that questions of South-South Divergence form a logical and timely extension to the Great Divergence research agenda. Asia’s economic renaissance did not only put an end to a century-spanning process of widening global income disparities, it also set a new process of divergence within the global South in motion. Deeper understandings of the historical nature and origins of this transition are pertinent in light of the increasing demographic and economic weight of the global South. South-South comparisons also offer an opportunity to counter the dominance of Western-centered and North-South perspectives and incentivize economic historians to develop new approaches and theories that go beyond mainstream concepts designed by development economists and political scientists. I argue that these novel approaches will have to grapple with the opportunities and constraints to ‘late development’ shaped by the globalized, post-colonial and closed-frontier world order of the late 20th and early 21st century.
Keywords: South-South Divergence; Global Economic History; Great Divergence; Industrialization; Economic Development; Colonialism
JEL Codes: N01; O10; B0; L0; F15; F60
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| state-led development programs in North and Southeast Asia (O25) | sustained growth (O44) |
| effective governance, strong bureaucratic capacity, and alignment of interests among societal stakeholders (O17) | sustained growth (O44) |
| weak institutions and lack of cohesive state power (O17) | failure of state-led initiatives in Africa and Latin America (O54) |
| local historical contexts and shared experiences (N90) | economic growth and stagnation clustering regionally (R11) |
| external shocks and regional policies (F68) | significant interrelated effects on growth patterns (O41) |
| economic ascendance of one region (like Asia) (O53) | preemption of growth opportunities in others (like Africa) (O55) |