Charles Kenny

Books, Papers and Articles

Charles Kenny writes about global development — what’s working, what isn’t, and how the world can do better. An economist who spent fifteen years at the World Bank, he is now a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC.

About Charles

  • Why Aren’t Countries Rich?

    Why Aren’t Countries Rich? Weak States and Bad Neighbourhoods was published in The Journal of Development Studies 35, 5, 1999.  This article challenges a common viewpoint that the policy choices made by state leaders are central to explanations of economic growth. It argues that there are two possible flaws in this viewpoint. First, that state leaders have a free choice in policy decisions; second, that it is policies that in large part determine growth rates. Using a set of variables designed to capture the weakness of the policy autonomy of the state and possible non-policy influences on growth rates, the article concludes that initial conditions are a better determinant of wealth and growth than free policy choice.

    Reprinted in M. Seligson and J. Passe-Smith Development and Under-Development: The Political Economy of Global Inequality Boulder: Rienner (2003).

  • Does Growth Cause Happiness, or Does Happiness Cause Growth?

    Does Growth Cause Happiness, or Does Happiness Cause Growth? was published by Kyklos 52, 1999. Taking lessons from a conception of the nature and causes of happiness that harks back to Adam Smith and the original Utilitarians, this paper argues that increases in absolute income should have little effect on happiness in rich countries and that there might instead be channels linking happiness causally with growth. Using time series evidence from happiness polls in ten wealthy countries, the paper finds no support for a causal link from growth to happiness, weak support for a reverse causation, and further (weak) support for links between national equality and happiness and leisure time and happiness. 

  • Senegal and the Entropy Theory of Development

    Senegal and the Entropy Theory of Development was published in the European Journal of Development Research, 10, 1, 1998.  This analysis uses Senegal as a test case to study the assumptions made by the governance agenda.  After briefly charting the growth of the governance model and the theoretical assumptions on which it rests, the study outlines an alternative view of state action based on legitimacy and survival.  The bulk of the study examines the economic reform process in Senegal, and argues that the governance model of development cannot account for the timing or nature of economic reform efforts there.   Instead, the actions of the state in Senegal were dictated by the need to respond to a continuing lack of legitimacy despite ‘correct’ formal institutional structures.  The study concludes that the economic reform process –such as it was in Senegal– was driven from the outside, and that institutional reform was either irrelevant or harmful to that process.

  • Stock Markets in Africa

    Stock Markets in Africa: Emerging Lions or White Elephants? co-authored with Todd Moss, was published in World Development, 26, 5 (1998). The number of stock markets in African countries has doubled over the last 7 years. Although these markets remain small and illiquid, they are growing rapidly, and will become an increasingly important part of many African economies. Using examples taken from experience in other developing regions and Africa’s recent past, this paper evaluates the common economic criticisms of stock markets and the political pitfalls involved in their operation. It concludes that the positive economic effects of bourses on African economies are far larger than any negative effects, and argues that the political costs can be mitigated while political benefits can also be gained. It finishes by suggesting reforms that can be put in place to reap more benefits and further reduce costs from stock markets on the continent.

    It was reprinted in S. Mensah and D. Seck African Emerging Markets: Contemporary Issues Vol. 1 (Accra: African Capital Markets Forum).