UNU-MERIT Working Papers Series
Income polarization and innovation: Evidence from African economies
Théophile T. Azomahou & Mbaye Diene #2012-048This paper examines the degree of polarization of GDP per capita of
African economies between 1966 and 2008. Based on a nonparametric
analysis, we find that countries tend to cluster in two classes of per
capita GDP. Relying on the Wolfson's bipolarization measure, the results
reveal that bipolarization has been accelerating during the two first
decades and is still growing. We relate the evolution of polarization
during the period to the business sectors. We find that countries
specialization is the driving force of this evolution, namely,
agriculture and industry sectors. We also study the
innovation-development polarization relation in a VAR framework using
patents and trademarks as measures of innovation.
JEL classifcation: C32, O34, O47, O55
Keywords: Polarization of GDP, patents, trademarks, VAR model
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