Institution, Inequality and Incomes: Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire

Africa was before tagged as a “hopeless continent” by economists due to its climate, poor

conditions, lack of resources and its little to no economic progress. But since then, profound changes

started to take place. Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire are both countries inside Africa that has helped boost the

economy. Its outstanding that both has been head to head in getting the title of being the largest economy

in Africa but the fact isn’t deniable that these two countries are the driving force behind Africa’s growing

economy.

These two both has very similar resource endowments as well as its socio cultural environments.

But extraneous factors made them different and made them develop different strategies. The following

are the list of comparative development between the countries thus, led them to create contrasting ideas

of development: The Colonial Impact and the Legacy of Institutions, Institutional Quality,

Ethnolinguistic Fractionalization, Extreme Inequality, Population, Common Law versus Civil Law,

French versus British rule, Education, Development Policies, Policies in Ghana, Policies in Cote d'Ivoire,

Enduring Questions.

It really can’t be repudiated that history really affects the present and how political and

institutional stands creates drastic changes in the policies. The political regimes in the two countries have

followed very different trajectories thus leading to very different patterns of growth. Colonization still

influences the decision even during independence. The disparities of their institutions, the evident

inequality, and irregularity of income have been the critical factor why these two countries are different

and persistently will be.