The development path of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the past two decades has been characterized by sluggish poverty reduction occurring alongside robust economic growth. Applying polarization measures to comparable survey data from 24 SSA countries, we find that there has been a generalizable increase in polarization over the past two decades—and in particular, an increased concentration of households in the lower tail of the welfare distribution of SSA countries. The polarization process is further analyzed by identifying the main drivers and singling out the effect of different covariates at different points in the consumption distribution. This investigation reveals that the drivers of polarization are relatively similar across SSA: demographic, urban/rural, regional variables and access to basic infrastructure are found to be the most important drivers of polarization in many countries.

中文翻译：

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我们真的在墙上画魔鬼吗？过去二十年撒哈拉以南非洲地区的两极分化及其驱动因素

过去二十年，撒哈拉以南非洲（SSA）的发展道路的特点是减贫缓慢，经济增长强劲。对来自 24 个 SSA 国家的可比调查数据应用两极分化测量，我们发现在过去 20 年中，两极分化普遍加剧，尤其是家庭越来越集中在 SSA 国家福利分布的下端。通过确定主要驱动因素并挑选出不同协变量在消费分布中不同点的影响，进一步分析了极化过程。这项调查表明，在整个 SSA 中，两极分化的驱动因素相对相似：人口、城市/农村、