Contextualizing Narratives of Economic Growth and Navigating Problematic Data: Economic Trends in Ethiopia (1999–2017)
by
Logan Cochrane 1,2,*
and
Yeshtila W. Bekele 2,3
Logan Cochrane 1,2,* and
Yeshtila W. Bekele 2,3
1
Global and International Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON K1S 5B6, Canada
2
Institute of Policy and Development Research, Hawassa University, Hawassa 1558, Ethiopia
3
Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life and Sciences, 1430 Ås, Norway
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Economies 2018, 6(4), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/economies6040064
Received: 9 September 2018 / Revised: 22 November 2018 / Accepted: 29 November 2018 / Published: 3 December 2018
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Economic Development in Africa)
There are common narratives about economic growth in Ethiopia. We analyze four common narratives, namely, that (1) the economy is transforming from agriculture to industry, (2) that national economic growth has been rapid and sustained, (3) that Ethiopia’s economy is largely agricultural, and (4) that there is a looming debt crisis, largely due to lending from China. In many instances, the justification for these narratives is based upon single years or specific data points. We examine these narratives over the long term, to assess if they are supported by available macroeconomic data. In doing so, we encountered significant issues with data quality and consistency. This article presents the available datasets from 1999 to 2017 and concludes that the commonly made claims about the Ethiopian economy are sometimes accurate, sometimes incomplete, and other times inaccurate. We call for greater attention to primary data, and primary datasets, as opposed to relying upon secondary summaries, single years, or specific data points to make generalized claims.
View Full-Text
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Cochrane, L.; Bekele, Y.W. Contextualizing Narratives of Economic Growth and Navigating Problematic Data: Economic Trends in Ethiopia (1999–2017). Economies 2018, 6, 64.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
