Mauritius has had one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.
Brian Chernoff and Andrew Warner (C&W) start by explaining how unlikely this fast growth was, in this draft article on Mauritian growth (in preparation for a conference on growth in another small island economy - Iceland) Sources of Fast Growth in Mauritius: 1960 – 2000 (1st draft, Center for International Development at Harvard University, May 2002):
Mauritius is a small remote tropical island in a forgotten section of the Indian Ocean. From the perspective of current research on the sources of fast economic growth, Mauritius’ endowments would not have seemed particularly favorable for growth back in the 1960’s or early 1970’s. It is geographically remote. Its climate is tropical, with attendant disease burdens and problems with tropical agriculture. The size of the domestic market is tiny, with little scope for exploiting domestic economies of scale. It had rapid population growth in the 1960’s and seemed to be at risk of a Malthusian trap. And its main export product at the time, sugar, was subject to all the risks of the international sugar market, not only international price risk but also the risk from devastating cyclones. Its export sector in the 1960’s was anything but diversified, with sugar dominating exports. It was thus a natural resource intensive economy subject to the curse of natural resources. Mauritius also had a history of colonial domination by several powers and as a result its population was a mixture of several ethnic groups, with all the social and political risks of ethnic strife.
Mauritian growth has been impressive since 1970. C&W calculate that annual GDP growth averaged about 1% in the 1960s, about 5% from 1970-1982, and about 6% thereafter. It was relatively variable up to the mid-eighties, relatively stable after:
(Adapted from Chernow and Walters)
It's pretty dark in Alaska right now. Of course the shortest day came shortly before Christmas.
In Juneau, the light that day lasted about 6 1/2 hours. But Juneau's daylight might not be considered real daylight elsewhere. Clouds screened out a lot of the light we might have had. Moreover, the sun lies low on the horizon, even when it's up, and much of the time we're in the shade of the mountains that crowd close around us.
It's worse further north - in Barrow (on the shore of the Arctic Ocean) they won't see the sun for weeks. The New York Times just ran a story on Alaska's dark days, highlighting "seasonal affective disorder" - the dark induced depression that many feel at this time: In Alaska, Darkness and Depression Descend (Associated Press, December 18):
Winter is a drag to some extent for one out of five Americans, studies suggest. A smaller fraction - mostly women and young adults - suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, a type of depression stemming from decreased daylight.
Nearly 10 percent of Alaskans suffer from the disorder to some degree, according to a 1992 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Symptoms include lethargy, a heightened desire for sleep, cravings for carbohydrates, feelings of melancholy, fuzzy thinking and loss of libido or sociability, said Suzanne Womack Strisik, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
Severe cases can be debilitating, even prompting thoughts of suicide. Experts say, however, suicide rates actually peak with increasing spring light.
"You don't have enough energy to make a plan before then," Ms. Strisik said. "It's too much trouble. Once the light starts coming back, there's more energy, but reasoning is still off. "
So, naturally one's thoughts turn to warmer, sunnier, more cheerful places. Like tropical Mauritius:
Mauritius, an island nation, is located in the Indian Ocean. This Air Mauritius route map shows where:
There have been a number of impressive growth episodes in Africa: Growing in Africa ...