Introduction

President Clinton famously had the slogan, ‘It's the economy, stupid’, hanging in the Oval Office as a constant reminder to himself of what his priority should be in order to keep the American electorate on his side. Giving priority to the population's economic well-being is good advice to all democratic politicians, but I shall argue that, if we want to understand the half-century of the Ghanaian economy's experiences, we should invert Clinton's priority and pay most attention to institutions and politics. The mantra for economists trying to understand the performance of Ghana's economy should be, ‘It's the polity …’ [readers to supply their own epithet].

Clark Leith's (2004) provides an excellent foundation on which my paper can build. Taking his review of the economic record as the starting point, the initial premises here are that:

• There has been real economic progress in Ghana since the early 1980s. The last two decades have produced the most sustained and consistent period of growth of the last half-century. This is no mean achievement, and there are no grounds for a habit of pessimism.

• But the progress made has been less than brilliant. Weaknesses have persisted. The economic structure has remained rather rigid. Much of the economy would still have to be described as pre-modern, and technological progress has been slow.

• […]