Property, Institutions, and Social Stratification in Africa

Explores and challenges existing conventions of inequality in Africa while offering new insights to explain persistent poverty across the continent.

Franklin Obeng-Odoom (Author)

9781108491990, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 March 2020

376 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.6 cm, 0.63 kg

'... Obeng-Odoom's latest book presents a fresh, comprehensive political economic framework for the general Global South, specifically Africa. It prioritizes Africans' authority in ongoing economic processes taking place on African soil.' Daphne Engel, SAGE Publications

In this book, Franklin Obeng-Odoom seeks to carefully explain, engage, and systematically question the existing explanations of inequalities within Africa, and between Africa and the rest of the world using insights from the emerging field of stratification economics. Drawing on multiple sources - including archival and historical material and a wide range of survey data - he develops a distinctive approach that combines key concepts in original institutional economics, such as reasonable value, property, and the distribution of wealth, with other insights into Africa's development and underdevelopment. While looking at the Africa-wide situation, Obeng-Odoom also analyzes the experiences of inequalities within specific countries. Comprehensive and engaging, Property, Institutions, and Social Stratification in Africa is a useful resource for teaching and research on Africa and the Global South.

Preface
Part I. The Problem: Introduction. The Global South in a 'compartmentalised world': 1. The foundations for a new beginning
Part II. Problematic Explanations and Solutions: 2. Property economics
3. Land reform
4. Human capital
5. International trade
6. Economic growth
Part III. Alternatives: 7. Socialism
8. Africanisms
Concluding the groundwork for a new political economy of the Global South
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Development economics & emerging economies [KCM], Economic growth [KCG]