Is Inequality in Africa Really Different?

High inequality in Africa is something
of a paradox: Africa should be a low-inequality continent
according to the Kuznets hypothesis (because African
countries are poor and agriculture-based), and also because
land (the main asset) is widely shared. The author's
hypothesis is that African inequality is politically
determined. Yet in the empirical analysis, despite the
introduction of several political variables, there is still
an inequality-increasing "Africa effect" linked to
ethnic fractionalization. The politics, however, may work
through ethnic fractionalization, which provides an easy and
secure basis for the formation of political groups. Although
this is a plausible explanation, it is not fully
satisfactory, and the author criticizes it in the concluding section.