LAUSR

Abstract Extant literature has argued that, with major extension of democracy since the 1990s, political business cycle has become more intense and has made African political systems more fragile. In light of this, this paper examines both the existence of African political business cycles and their impact on human development. It confirms the existence of political business cycles in Africa. Estimates of a panel fixed effects and system-GMM regression techniques for 38 African countries from 1990 to 2015 also suggest that such cycles worsen human development in African countries. This finding is consistent if we limit our analysis to various sub-regions of Africa, and also at two different income levels.