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1
 THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF

THE ECONOMY OF CAMEROON

2
 THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF

THE ECONOMY OF CAMEROON

Edited by
CÉLESTIN MONGA

3
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research,
scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain
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© Oxford University Press 2022
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First Edition published in 2022
Impression: 1
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022937024
ISBN 978–0–19–284852–9
eISBN 978–0–19–266465–5
DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192848529.001.0001
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the
materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

4
 CONTENTS

List of Contributors

Introduction: The Economics and Poetics of Sorrow

CÉLESTIN MONGA

PART I CONTEXT, LEGACIES, AND MINDSETS

1. The Cameroon Economy: Historical Overview
JOHN MUKUM MBAKU
2. Cameroon as Part of Central Africa’s Political Economy
ANDREAS MEHLER
3. The Interplay Between Colonial History and Postcolonial Institutions: Evidence from Cameroon
MARIE CHRISTELLE MABEU AND ROLAND PONGOU
4. The Political Economy of Ethnicity
CÉLESTIN MONGA
5. The Political Economy of Reform Consensus (or Lack thereof) in Cameroon
CONSTANT LONKENG
6. The Homo Economicus in Cameroon: A View from Below
AMBROISE KOM
7. Untold Perspectives about Cameroon’s Economy
FABIEN NKOT

PART II ECONOMIC STRUCTURE AND STRUCTURAL

TRANSFORMATION
8. Monetary and Multidimensional Poverty in Cameroon: Measurements, Determinants, and Policy
Implications
FRANCIS ANDRIANARISON, BOUBA HOUSSEINI, AND CHRISTIAN OLDIGES
9. Cameroon’s Economic Assets and Production: Documenting and Analyzing a Mismatch
FULBERT TCHANA TCHANA
10. The Economics of Infrastructure in Cameroon: State, Challenges, and Policy Reforms
THÉOPHILE BOUGNA AND PAUL NOUMBA UM
11. Structural Transformation and Productivity Growth in Cameroon
DÉSIRÉ AVOM AND YSELLE FLORA MALAH KUETE
12. Economic Diversification in Cameroon: A Trade—DSM analysis
JEAN-MARC M. KILOLO, MARTIN CAMERON, ANTONIO PEDRO, AND JEAN-LUC N.
MASTAKI
13. Cameroon: Trade Costs, Trade Facilitation, and Regional Integration
ZAKARIA SORGHO
14. The Political Economy of Contemporary Youth in Cameroon
PARFAIT ELOUNDOU-ENYEGUE, SARAH C. GIROUX, AND MICHEL TENIKUE
15. Cameroon’s Labor Market Dynamics and Prospects
BOUBA HOUSSEINI AND BRAHIM BOUDARBAT

5
 16. Cameroon’s Informal Labor Market
EBENEZER LEMVEN WIRBA, FIENNASAH ANNIF’ AKEM, AND FRANCIS MENJO BAYE
17. Drivers of Earnings Inequalities in Urban Cameroon
CHRISTIAN ZAMO-AKONO AND SIMON ALAIN SONG-NTAMACK
18. Education: The Hypothesis of Negative Returns
BERNADETTE DIA KAMGNIA AND CYRILLE BERGALY KAMDEM
19. Early Human Capital Accumulation and Decentralization
GUY TCHUENTE
20. Comments on Decentralization in Cameroon
ROGER B. MYERSON
21. Determinants of the Performance of the Education System: The Role of Institutions
ISSIDOR NOUMBA
22. Health Outcomes and Health Care Financing in Cameroon
AUGUSTIN NTEMBE
23. Economic Evaluations of Health Financing Programs
ERIC TCHOUAKET NGUEMELEU, STEPHANIE ROBINS, EMILIE BÉLANGER, DRISSA SIA,
AND ISIDORE SIELEUNOU
24. Agriculture Transformation
MARTIN FREGENE AND GRACIA KAHASHA

PART III MACROECONOMIC POLICIES AND INSTITUTIONAL

PRACTICES
25. Fiscal Policy Effectiveness through the Lenses Useful of Government Consumption
JOHN NANA FRANCOIS AND ANDREA MATA
26. Fiscal Decentralization, Entrepreneurship, and Firm Productivity in Cameroon
THÉOPHILE BOUGNA AND PIERRE NGUIMKEU
27. Public Debt: Beyond Accounting
CÉLESTIN MONGA
28. Withholding Trust: Business Taxpayers and the Value-Added Tax in Cameroon
JOSÉ-MARÍA MUÑOZ
29. The CFA Franc: The Financial Sector and Economic Growth in CEMAC
ALOYSIUS AJAB AMIN
30. The Monetary and Financial Sector in Cameroon: Structure, Performance, and Vulnerabilities
JACQUES LANDRY BIKAI, GUY ALBERT KENKOUO, PATRICK-NELSON DANIEL
ESSIANE, AND MOUSTAPHA MBOHOU MAMA
31. Financing Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Cameroon
REGINA NSANG TAWAH
32. Female Entrepreneurship in Africa: Characteristics and Determinants in Cameroon
AHMADOU ALY MBAYE, FATOU GUEYE, AND NANCY BENJAMIN
33. Models of Governance in Cameroon’s Public Administration
VIVIANE ONDOUA BIWOLÉ

PART IV LOOKING FORWARD

34. The Economy of Corruption in Cameroonian’s Cartoons
CHRISTELLE AMINA DJOULDÉ

6
35. The Analytics of Natural Resource Management
ERIC BAHEL, OCTAVE KEUTIBEN, AND DIDIER TATOUTCHOUP
36. Testing the Dynamic Efficiency of Extraction of Nonrenewable Resources
FRANCIS DIDIER TATOUTCHOUP, OCTAVE KEUTIBEN, AND ERIC BAHEL
37. Oil Revenue Management: Cameroon’s Experience
OCTAVE KEUTIBEN, DIDIER TATOUTCHOUP, AND ERIC BAHEL
38. Comparing Nonrenewable Resources Stocks and Capital Goods
JOHNSON KAKEU
39. Electricity Supply and Manufacturing Exports
ISMAILA AMADU AND EPO BONIFACE NGAH
40. A Blueprint for Employment Creation
CÉLESTIN MONGA
41. The Economics of Migration and Remittances: New Opportunities
NADEGE D. YAMEOGO
42. Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics in Cameroon: Challenges, Benefits, and Potential
Applications
SAMUEL FOSSO WAMBA AND MACIEL M. QUEIROZ
43. The Economy of Humanitarianism
CILAS KEMEDJIO
44. When Kamerun Will Awaken…
DANIEL ETOUNGA-MANGUELLE

Index

7
 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Aloysius Ajab Amin, Clayton State University

Ismaila Amadu, Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation
Francis Andrianarison, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Fiennasah Annif’ Akem, University of Dschang
Désiré Avom, University of Yaoundé 2
Eric Bahel, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Émilie Belanger, University of Québec
Nancy Benjamin, University of Cape Town
Cyrille Bergaly Kamdem, University of Yaoundé 2
Epo Boniface Ngah, University of Yaoundé 2
Brahim Boudarbat, University of Montreal
Théophile Bougna, World Bank
Martin Cameron, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)
Bernadette Dia Kamgnia, CIRES, University of Abidjan
Christelle Amina Djoulde, University of Ngaoundere
Parfait Eloundou-Enyegue, Cornell University
Patrick-Nelson Daniel Essiane, Bank of Central African States (BEAC)
Daniel Etounga-Manguelle, University of Yaoundé 1
Martin Fregene, African Development Bank
Sarah C. Giroux, Cornell University
Fatou Gueye, Cheikh Anta Diop University
Bouba Housseini, International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
Gracia Kahasha, African Development Bank
Johnson Kakeu, University of Prince Edward Island
Cilas Kemedjio, University of Rochester
Guy Albert Kenkouo, Bank of Central African States (BEAC)
Octave Keutiben, University of Moncton
Jean-Marc M. Kilolo, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)
Ambroise Kom, College of the Holy Cross
Jacques Landry Bikai, Bank of Central African States (BEAC)
Ebenezer Lemven Wirba, University of Bamenda
Constant Lonkeng, International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Marie Christelle Mabeu, Stanford University

8
Yselle Malah Kuete, University of Yaoundé 2
Jean-Luc N. Mastaki, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)
Andrea Mata, World Bank
Ahmadou Aly Mbaye, Cheikh Anta Diop University
Moustapha Mbohou Mama, International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Andreas Mehler, University of Freiburg
Francis Menjo Baye, University of Yaoundé 2
Célestin Monga, Harvard University
John Mukum Mbaku, Weber State University
José-María Muñoz, University of Edinburgh
Roger B. Myerson, University of Chicago
John Nana Francois, World Bank
Pierre Nguimkeu, Georgia State University
Fabien Nkot, University of Yaoundé 2
Issidor Noumba, University of Yaoundé 2
Paul Noumba Um, World Bank
Augustin Ntembe, Bowie State University
Christian Oldiges, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Viviane Ondoua Biwolé, University of Yaoundé 2
Antonio Pedro, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)
Roland Pongou, University of Ottawa
Maciel M. Queiroz, Paulista University—UNIP
Stephanie Robins, University of Québec
Drissa Sia, University of Québec
Isidore Sieleunou, Research for Development International
Simon Alain Song-Ntamack, University of Yaoundé 2
Zakaria Sorgho, FERDI and University of Laval
Didier Tatoutchoup, University of Moncton
Regina Tawah, Bowie State University
Fulbert Tchana Tchana, World Bank
Eric Tchouaket Nguemeleu, University of Québec
Guy Tchuente, University of Kent
Michel Tenikue, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research
Samuel Fosso Wamba, Toulouse Business School
Nadege D. Yameogo, World Bank
Christian Zamo-Akono, University of Yaoundé 2

9
 INTRODUCTION
The Economics and Poetics of Sorrow

CÉLESTIN MONGA

Cameroon? Rumor has it that the word “Cameroon” is valid only when the national football team, the
famed Indomitable Lions, bursts into a stadium, makes the turf tremble, and sends the stands into
apoplectic fits by the mere force of their arrogance. “Cameroon” would then exist only occasionally, when
eleven men in green jerseys, red shorts and yellow stockings run like fools after a round ball, go wild in
sliding tackles, chest traps, scissors moves, outside foot controls, curling inside foot shots, or downward
headers into the penalty area. “Cameroon” would thus have—provisional—meaning only when these crazy
athletes bustle about and get out of breath under the—often alcoholic—yells of the crowd and the
voyeuristic lenses of the cameras.
A variant of the same argument, expressed with the necessary philosophical emphasis to give it some
semblance of elegance, stresses particularly the random character of the historical accident that this
country was—like almost all African States for that matter. This other argument mentions the fortuitous
nature of the genesis of this geographic triangle with long uncertain borders that are still questioned today
by certain anglophone citizens who feel suppressed in the corset of a tropicalized French-speaking world.
In short, for some people, since “Cameroon” is recognized on the large map of nations only by its football
team or its bad reputation of being another of the last vestiges of Franco–British colonial fantasies, it
should be systematically surrounded by quotation marks, or simply amalgamated into this single,
indivisible Africa that serves as an ideological junk cupboard for some, and a political business for others.
However negative it may be, there is a legitimate side to this rumor. After all, like most of the present
African States, “Cameroon” was hastily drawn up by French and English colonists, probably after a night
of negotiations and orgies, this in the framework of a political theatre known as the Conference of Berlin
(1884–1885). An entity so arbitrarily drawn up and carved out would thus merit only the furtive episodes
of recognition offered by the fleeting excitement of sports competitions.
The contributors to this Handbook have not let themselves be intimidated by the strength of this rumor
or the weight of these prejudices. With admirable abandon that does not, however, contain the slightest bit
of naïveté, they sovereignly decided to present economic knowledge and images of their “Cameroon.” In
so doing, they ignored the quotation marks that some would like to inflict upon this country which always
proclaims its desire to be a nation. In a varied thematic register, the authors of this work cast light on the
context, the contours and mechanisms of the Cameroonian economy, the processes of socialization of the
economic agent in this country and the emergence of new rituals of thought, action, and deviance. Finally,
they offer elements of a response to the well-known problem of historical causality and obliquely outline a
grammar of sorrow and melancholy.

10
 I.1 CAMEROON WITHOUT QUOTATION MARKS

The matter of the validity of the territory studied remains, however. What is the legitimacy of an economic
work on Cameroon in this Africa that officially consists of fifty-five States arbitrarily drawn by the
colonizers? Must we accept the very idea of this “Cameroon” bequeathed to us by yesterday’s oppressors?
Must we be satisfied with the geographical and above all psychological borders that the European colonists
bequeathed to us and that we interiorize like infallible prescriptions? Should we, on the contrary, begin by
questioning the legitimacy of the term “Cameroon” and its validity, especially in the context of the great
number of identity and political frustrations that feed demands of all sorts? Should we redefine the concept
of the nation-State in Africa, reinvent the territory it refers to, and satisfy, for example, the broken dreams
of Kwame Nkrumah? Or rather deplore the nativist risk hiding behind the vision of a world of
nation-States presented implicitly as sealed-off entities developing in isolation and whose communities and
socioeconomic groups sometimes live side by side in an atmosphere of rancor and suspicion?
These questions do not arise only in Africa. In a January 1995 speech to the European Parliament that
has remained famous, the former head of the French State François Mitterrand received a standing ovation
when he cried out: “Nationalism is war!” Admittedly, Europe was at the time moaning under the battering
of the ethnic wars that had torn ex-Yugoslavia apart. It was easy in such a context to refer to the skeptical
sally of the metaphysically Stateless Emil Cioran for whom “the homeland is a camp in the desert.” Yes, of
course, nationalism is at times the breeding ground of nativism because, in some forms, it constantly needs
an enemy to validate itself; this despite the arbitrariness of the delineation, the forms of organization, the
cultural sediments that found the nation, and the fact that it is always the product of the fortuity of the
historical adventure.
Today, under the cover of a certain legalism, international law provides a normative approach inspired
by the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, positing “objective” criteria to fulfill in order to be considered
a nation: territory, sovereignty of a State, language, religion, culture, history, etc. The promoters of this
mechanical and superficial legalism omit mentioning that their model nations would themselves never
have passed that test: the borders of France in 1789 were not at all natural, no more than those of the
United States in 1776 or of Belgium in 1830. As for the supposed sociological or cultural homogeneity of
current America, it would provoke smiles if it were compared to that of Rwanda, Mali, or Cameroon. Italy
is populated by Gauls, Etruscans, Greeks, and many other peoples. Great Britain is Celtic and Germanic,
among other things. France too is Celtic, Germanic, Iberian, Arab, Jewish, and even Sahelian … These
unstable mixtures do not prevent those countries from proclaiming that they are nations—a label that it is
handy to refuse to Cameroon or Guinea.
It is advisable to take seriously Ernest Renan’s observation, according to which “the essence of a nation
is that all of its individual members have a great deal in common, and also that they have all forgotten
many things.” The contributors to this Handbook implicitly accept this “subjective” and modest approach
to the nation. They have no need to put into quotation marks the idea of the Cameroon that is concerned in
the present work because the nation is here considered in its most immaterial sense. “A nation is a soul, a
spiritual principle,” said Renan (1992). “The nation, like the individual, is the outcome of a long past of
efforts, sacrifices and devotions.” This is the stoical and generous conception adopted by the authors of
this book. Thus Cameroon appears here as the result of a fermentation process that led to the acceptance of
a common destiny. Neither exclusive nor arrogant, that Cameroon is the sum of the common memories of
the peoples who compose it, the symbol of the mutual consents, the reflection of the desire to live together
and to take on a rich intellectual and spiritual heritage for which entire generations of men and women
from all regions of the country sacrificed themselves. This collection is therefore, above all, the epic and
analytic chronicle of a long journey and an invitation to the knowledge and discovery of a Cameroonian
imaginary whose texture is constantly changing.

11
 I.2 CAMEROON’S ECONOMIC EXPERIENCE: MEANING AND RELEVANCE

Cameroon was the first of the African territories under French colonial rule to regain independence in
1960. Yet, its history as a sovereign nation has been so far one of economic underperformance. It is also
one of paradoxes, missed opportunities, erroneous strategies and policies, but ultimately, resilience.
Cameroon’s economic experience sheds light on broader issues of Africa’s economic narrative and
provides valuable development economics knowledge. It deserves scrutiny.
Cameroon is classified as a lower-middle-income country by the World Bank. Located along the
Atlantic Ocean, it shares its borders with Chad, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon,
and Nigeria. Two of its border regions with Nigeria (northwest and southwest) are Anglophone, while the
remaining eight are Francophone. Cameroon is endowed with talented people, rich natural resources,
including oil and gas, minerals, high-value species of timber, and agricultural products, such as coffee,
cotton, cocoa, maize, and cassava. While Cameroon’s informal economy is quite diverse and resilient, and
rooted in old business traditions, its formal economy has exhibited low productivity and employment
growth over much of the past 60 years.
Cameroon’s growth rates climbed in the two decades following independence, as public policies initially
focused on expansion of educational facilities, diversification of farm production, industrialization, and
rural development. Yet that growth was largely fueled by export of raw materials to the production centers
of Europe. The commodity price boom supported Africa’s rapid growth. In the 1970s and 1980s, oil made
a significant contribution, as did higher prices for metals and agricultural products. But domestic
manufacturing, which has been central to those countries which earlier achieved sustainable growth,
lagged as a contributor of growth.
In the mid-1980s, economic mismanagement, coupled with the drop in price of important export
commodities—particularly cocoa, coffee, and oil—forced Cameroon into a lengthy recession.
Unsustainable budget deficits compelled the authorities to resort to external borrowing and to seek support
from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in the form of various forms of macroeconomic
stabilization and structural adjustment programs.
Cameroon’s economy continues to depend heavily on the sale of its commodities on the world market,
and fluctuations in the global prices of its primary goods—petroleum and cocoa—have led to a decline in
terms of trade and have made its economic situation fragile; with a currency pegged to a strong French
franc and subsequently a strong euro within a French–African monetary union (the Franc Zone), the
Cameroonian economy experienced appreciation of its real exchange rate and lost external
competitiveness; with fewer profitable investment opportunities, the country also experienced capital flight
and high unemployment and underemployment. Corruption, a persistent problem, also hampered economic
development. In much of the past three decades, more reliance on private enterprise and free trade became
the dominant trends but has yielded disappointing results—especially in the context of rapid demographic
growth.
While Cameroon has many of the inputs and markets that would support the rise of a large
manufacturing sector, the country has a small industrial footprint and arguably saw a degree of
deindustrialization in the commodity boom of the mid-2000s—a continuation of deindustrialization trends
that have been in place since the structural adjustment programs. The basic structure of the economy, as
measured by sectoral contributions to GDP, has changed little in the past 60 years. The main question is
whether Cameroon’s growth model will yield enough decent employment to meet the needs of its young
and educated workforce.
For several years, Cameroon was ranked on perception surveys (most notably by Transparency
International) as the most corrupt country in the world. Poor governance has indeed stifled the country’s
economic development—though it is important to define governance in much broader terms than
corruption, State capture, and even dishonest practices by government officials: honest economic policy
mistakes can be even costlier than narrowly defined corruption and State capture. This is particularly the
case in countries like Cameroon where the economic costs of political sclerosis have been high (the same
political party and two individuals have been in power for six decades). The country’s history has also

12
 been marked by sustained social unrest (since 1990), separatist armed rebellion and military conflicts in
the two English-speaking regions (since 2016), and insecurity due to jihadist terrorism in the northern
regions (since 2009).
The absence of structural transformation is especially evident in the labor market. Economic growth in
recent years has taken place in capital- and skills-intensive sectors, creating few jobs. Traditional
agriculture still employs most of the workforce. Only 5% of new entrants to the labor market work in the
formal and modern sectors. Formal employment has grown too slowly to absorb the influx of young and
educated workers, particularly in urban areas. The household enterprise sector is Cameroon’s fastest
growing employment source. Cameroon’s growth pattern needs to be more pro-poor, with consumption
growing faster for lower income segments of the population.
Manufacturing matters, and especially so because Cameroon, like all African countries, must create a
large number of new jobs to meet the needs of its young people and the growing pressures of urbanization.
And it has to create higher quality jobs that can raise incomes on a large scale—especially in the regions
currently marred by violent conflicts. Manufacturing is central to any sustainable job creation effort. It
creates jobs directly, and of generally good quality employment. It generates more jobs in supplier
industries, from mineral processing to services. And its labor force supports still more jobs in agriculture,
retail, production of consumer goods, and infrastructure. Manufacturing generally has a positive impact on
foreign exchange earnings and the balance of payments, both increasing export earnings and reducing the
import bill.
Recent economic history has shown that it is still possible for countries at low-income levels, such as
Cameroon, to achieve substantial growth in manufacturing, despite the rise of automation. Many of the
success stories occurred in Asia, from Japan’s early lead to Korea’s development as an industrial economy,
and today with the rise of China as the factory of the world. But successes can also be found on a smaller
scale for specific industries on the African continent, in countries as diverse as Mauritius, Ethiopia,
Morocco, South Africa, or Tunisia. What these examples point to is the return of industrial policy as a
valid focus of public policy. But modern industrial policy is not just concerned with expanding the
traditional industrial sector. It includes a wide range of activities, from sustainable transformation in
agriculture to tradable services.
Modern economic growth is a process of continuous technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and
economic diversification. No country in the world has been able to move from low- to middle- and
high-income status without undergoing the process of industrialization. Structural transformation is always
taking place because of changes in technology, in comparative advantage, and in the global economy.
There is a need for some guiding principles on how “best” Cameroon and other developing nations should
move human, capital, and financial resources from low- to high-productivity sectors. For the process to be
efficient, coordination and externality issues must be addressed. Markets typically do not manage such
structural transformations well on their own.
Moreover, most increases in per capita income arise from advances in technology—about 70% of
growth comes from sources other than factor accumulation. In developing countries, a substantial part of
growth arises from closing the technology (or knowledge) gap between themselves and those at the
frontier. And within any country (especially one like Cameroon), there is enormous scope for productivity
improvement simply by closing the gap between best practices and average practices. If improvements in
standards of living mainly come from a diffusion of knowledge, learning strategies must be at the heart of
the development strategies.
These elements of an emerging intellectual consensus provide further justification for studying how
economics should apply in developing country contexts such as Cameroon’s—well beyond the traditional
theoretical discussion of market failures based on coordination and conventional externalities. This new
theoretical perspective focuses on the reasons why markets, by themselves, are not likely to produce
sufficient growth enhancing investments, such as those associated with learning, knowledge accumulation,
and research.
However, the issues of diffusion of learning throughout society to equip and empower all private agents
have received little attention, in marked contrast to those of resource allocation. Indeed, much of the focus
has been on narrow conceptions of industrial policy and its suspicious connotation of “picking winners”
and generating private rents without social rewards. Externalities in learning and discovery support an

13
 infant economy argument for government intervention that is far more robust than the conventional infant
industry argument.
The consensus among economists and policymakers has grown wider on the need for governments to
focus on promoting learning, infant industries and economies, exports, and the private sector, not only in
manufacturing but also agriculture and services such as, health, information technology, or finance.
Industrial policy is therefore not just about manufacturing. Tackling all these questions in the context of
Cameroon provides useful knowledge and—hopefully—sparks new research on the fundamental dynamics
of economic development.
This Handbook examines the reasons for Cameroon’s unsatisfactory economic performance and draws
lessons from successful development experience to help tackle these issues. Through Cameroon’s
economic story, the Handbook discusses the evolving conceptions of economic policy, takes stock of
intellectual progress, documents the challenges of implementation, and outlines the remaining intellectual
and policy agenda. The Handbook also provides a critical assessment of the history, patterns, and strategies
of economic development in Cameroon, and outlines new approaches to economic inquiry for prosperity
and social change. It is therefore intended to be a contribution in the body of ongoing analytical work that
focuses on and Africa’s economic development strategies in the global economy.

I.3 UNDERSTANDING THE ECONOMY OF CAMEROON—AND

CONTRIBUTING TO KNOWLEDGE

Various strands of growth research since World War II have yielded some insights on the type of strategies
and policies that a country like Cameroon should implement in its quest for economic prosperity: on the
theoretical front, the analysis of endogenous technical innovation and increasing returns to scale has led to
a general framework for capturing the broad picture and the mechanics of economic growth; on the
empirical side, cross-country regressions highlight systematic differences between high-growth and
low-growth countries with regard to initial conditions (such as productivity levels, human capital,
demographic features, infrastructure, financial development, and inequality), institutional variables (such
as rule of law, protection of property rights, and governance indicators), and policy variables (such as
macroeconomic stability, financial regulation, or trade openness).
Yet, it has proven much harder for developing countries to achieve convergence with high-income
countries. Even the often-celebrated success stories of Asia only represent a handful of economies that
have moved from low- to high-income status during the past decades. As noted by Lin (2012), “between
1950 and 2008, only 28 economies in the world—and only 12 non-Western economies—were able to
narrow their per capita income gap with the United States by 10 percentage points or more. Meanwhile,
more than 150 countries have been trapped in low- or middle-income status. Narrowing the gap with
industrialized high-income countries continues to be the world’s main development challenge.”
Some unavoidable questions arise: what is the economic power of history? How does the political
economy of memory play out in country contexts with multiple colonial legacies and randomly set
boundaries? Such questions have not been studied systematically and empirically in the economic
literature on Cameroon. Most studies of African economies explain the continent’s poor growth and
development performance as resulting from markets or national government interventions.
Part I on the“Context, Legacies, and Mindsets” of the Handbook reexamines such claims and revisits
the arguments that the organization of pre-colonial States affects long-run prosperity. As a territory
subjugated by Germany, France, and Great Britain, Cameroon is a good laboratory for exploring and
testing some of these theories: the intellectual benefits of studying the long-term impacts of Cameroon’s
colonial history and its interplay with postcolonial institutions go well beyond a handbook on Cameroon.
Mbaku’s opening chapter 1 on “The Cameroon Economy: A Historical Overview” surveys Cameroon’s
modern history, its institutional and cultural landscape, and sets the stage for such analyses. His chronicle
of the changing economic priorities during colonial times helps understand the economic dynamics
observed in Cameroon for more than a century. It starts with European colonialism—German, British, and
French—which brought various ethnolinguistic groups together to form what is now Cameroon, and
introduced the people to Western forms of capitalism and their associated institutions (e.g., private

14
 ownership of the means of production). Second, Christianity and Christian missions, which significantly
affected the people’s worldview, forced a restructuring of family relations, and paved the way for more
intergroup interaction and cooperation, are explored.
Mehler’s chapter 2 on “Cameroon as Part of Central Africa’s Political Economy” outlines a short history
of political developments in Cameroon since independence from a subregional perspective. Cameroon’s
violent history had an impact on its neighbors just as those neighbors had a, generally overlooked, impact
on Cameroon. Contagion via transnational networks and their dynamics is highly relevant. This
contribution also looks into the subregional status of dysfunctional institutions and the absence of checks
and balances in overly presidential, personalized, and undemocratic political systems. Autocratic regimes
and coup-makers clearly learned from each other. In fact, the wave of democratization of the 1990s all
over the continent did not produce tangible results in Central Africa, despite intense (but short-lived) street
mobilization to achieve political rights and civil liberties. Both the impact of a former colonizer (France)
and the relative dysfunctionality of subregional organizations (above all, the Economic Community of
Central African States (CEMAC)) were additional factors slowing down necessary political and economic
reforms: Ordinary Cameroonian citizens (just as citizens of the entire subregion) saw their objective
interests relegated behind the selfish interests of ruling families.
In their chapter 3, “The Interplay Between Colonial History and Postcolonial Institutions: Evidence
from Cameroon,” Mabeu and Pongou exploit both the arbitrary division of the German Colony of
Kamerun between France and Britain after World War I and the 1961 reunification of British Southern
Cameroons and the French-speaking République du Cameroun. Comparing individuals from the same
ethnic homeland, but living on either side of the British–French border within Cameroon, they find that
individuals on the British side had higher educational attainment before the reunification. However, that
this initial advantage was partially erased by post-reunification governance. Despite achieving higher
educational attainment overall, individuals on the British side have worse employment outcomes and
roughly similar infant mortality rates. Mabeu and Pongou provide further evidence of the interaction
between colonial origins and postcolonial institutions by analyzing how the outcomes of individuals in the
former Southern Cameroons differ from their hypothetical outcomes, had they instead opted to join Nigeria
in the 1961 plebiscite. They find that the people of Southern Cameroons have lower educational
attainment, higher infant mortality rates, and worse employment outcomes relative to their “co-ethnics”
living on the Nigerian side of the border between the former Southern Cameroons and Nigeria.
Picking up from where Mbaku and Mabeu-Pondou left off, Monga’s chapter 4 on “The Political
Economy of Ethnicity” examines the question of ethnicity and the economy of belonging. It deconstructs
the ethnic categorizations in Cameroon and emphasizes their contradictions and their arbitrary character. It
also discusses the empirical challenges for measuring ethnic inequities.
Lonkeng’s chapter 5 on “The Political Economy of Reform Consensus (or Lack Thereof) in Cameroon”
proposes a rationale for the apparent lack of economic reform consensus in Cameroon. Drawing on the
political economy literature, he provides model-based evidence that the quasi status quo may have resulted
from a systematic strategy by the rent-seeking elite to buy off groups to counter reform proposals by any
reform-minded team. The chapter focuses on the interaction between different interest groups and not on
specific reforms, many of which are explored throughout the Handbook.
Kom’s chapter 6 on “The Homo Economicus in Cameroon: A View from Below” proposes a reading of
the Cameroonian economy based on an economic agent’s view from below. Its intent is to cast
complementary light on the conceptual, theoretical, and empirical analyses constituting most of this work.
It is therefore written from the point of view of the citizen who interacts daily with the institutions
designing and implementing public policies, and small and medium-sized businesses that make up the
economic fabric. The perspective adopted here is also long-term, briefly covering the economic and social
approaches of the precolonial era as well as those of the colonial and post-independence eras. Kom’s
sobering analysis emphasizes the richness and the paradoxes of the Cameroonian economy, of its ruling
elites, its private sector, and economic agents of various levels.
Nkot’s contribution titled “Untold Perspectives About Cameroon’s Economy” (chapter 7) is both an
epistemological and empirical challenge to economists working on Cameroon. Examining a large sample
of works by well-known authors, Nkot argues that the analyses have often been limited to the formal
economy whose size and significance are nevertheless limited. He discusses the problems posed by an

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 exclusive focus on the formal sector of a national economy and suggests that analyses directed toward the
less formal aspects of this economy would more appropriately state its truths.
Part II on “Economic Structure and Structural Transformation” analyzes the fundamental elements for
structural change in Cameroon. Economic studies of structural transformation have evolved over the
decades to cover both macro and micro issues, and to hold different meanings (Lin and Monga, 2014). The
first wave of researchers working on low-income countries, which emerged in the 1940s, conceived
development to be an interrelated set of long-run processes. Their focus was therefore on structural change
in production structure and on economy-wide phenomena such as agricultural transformation,
industrialization, urbanization, and “modernization.” Kuznets (1966) who studied the genesis and patterns
of the evolution of modern economic growth in high-income countries approached structural analysis
mainly through the lenses of sectoral changes—that is, the evolution over time of the relative contributions
of agriculture, industry, and services to gross domestic product (Syrquin, 1988).
In the second wave of development thinking that dominated policymaking in low-income countries in
the 1980s and 1990s, structural analysis was carried out indirectly. Like Mr. Jourdain in Molière’s play,
economists approached structural change almost inadvertently through broad analysis of the general
functioning of economies, their markets, institutions, mechanisms for allocating resources, regulatory and
incentives systems, etc. The designers of the “structural” adjustment programs implemented in many
developing countries viewed the restoration of external and internal balances as an essential precondition
for launching the process of economic transformation and change.
A third and more recent wave of the development literature has sought to refine structural analysis and
bring back to the agenda some of the specific issues of the process of economic transformation: the
strategic selection of competitive industries according to the comparative advantage of developing
countries; the determinants of the dynamics of sectoral contributions to growth; the evolution of the capital
intensity of sectors over time—within and across countries; the factors that help or hinder the reallocation
of resources from low- to high-productivity sectors and the policy environment that facilitates such
changes; the processes that allow economies to move up the value chain; the various ways of organizing
and fostering the adaptation and adoption of new technologies in poor countries; the determinants of a
country’s ability to create good jobs; the respective roles of the government and the private sector; and the
institutional arrangements that are necessary to support structural transformation, especially in the context
of low-income countries where infrastructure, skills, and long-term financing are scarce.
In this Handbook, the concept of “economic structure” is used in its broadest meaning, referring to “the
composition of production activities, the associated patterns of specialization in international trade, the
technological capabilities of the economy, including the educational level of the labor force, the structure
of ownership of factors of production, the nature and development of basic State institutions, and the
degree of development and constraints under which certain markets operate (the absence of certain
segments of the financial market or the presence of a large underemployed labor force, for example)” (
Ocampo et al., 2009, p. 7).
Cameroon has recorded positive economic growth in the new millennium, while poverty reduction has
been limited and inequality has worsened. In their chapter 8, “Monetary and Multidimensional Poverty in
Cameroon: Measurements, Determinants and Policy Implications,” Andrianarison, Housseini, and Oldiges
investigate the different facets of poverty in Cameroon, the factors affecting them, and policy options to
tackle poverty and achieve inclusive and sustainable development. They apply two prominent poverty
measurement methods (Alkire–Foster and Foster–Greer–Thorbecke) to a series of household consumption
and living standards surveys, as well as demographic and health surveys, and perform various empirical
analyses to elucidate poverty dynamics and features. Their results show that both monetary and
multidimensional poverty have decreased in Cameroon during the two decades prior to the COVID-19
pandemic, albeit slowly and to varying degrees across the different demographic, socioeconomic, and
spatial groups of the population. They also find that the proportion of multidimensional poor people is
always higher than the proportion of the monetary poor. At the same time, multidimensional poverty has
reduced much faster than monetary poverty at the national level. Lastly, they find that higher levels of
poverty in Cameroon are strongly associated with rural livelihoods, large family size, less education, and
employment in agriculture and the northern regions of the country. The microeconomic analysis is
complemented with a review of structural factors affecting poverty at the macro level. They point out the

16
 need to accelerate the structural transformation of the Cameroonian economy, to reduce inequalities across
the different regions and subgroups of the population, and expand economic opportunities for the youth of
the country to achieve the demographic dividend.
Tchana Tchana’s chapter 9 on “Cameroon’s Economic Assets and Production: Documenting and
Analyzing a Mismatch” documents and analyzes the mismatch between Cameroon’s perceived wealth and
its economic production. It shows that, although not as wealthy as some analysts perceive, Cameroon’s
natural resources are underused as it is not transformed at its full potential to economic production (GDP).
The inadequate level of produced capital relative to the country’s total wealth mainly explains this
shortcoming. The country should focus on increasing public and private investments in infrastructure while
ensuring greater efficiency and building its human capital to fix the mismatch.
In their chapter 10, “The Economics of Infrastructure in Cameroon: State, Challenges, and Policy
Reforms,” Bougna and Noumba Um provide a critical assessment of infrastructure development and its
role in enabling business and growth in Cameroon. They explore the current state of Cameroon
infrastructure and the main challenges it faces. They use a simple econometric framework to link
Cameroon GDP growth with the stock of different infrastructure assets. They reveal an infrastructure-led
growth potential gap in Cameroon because the country’s infrastructure stock is not at the level of the
average African country. Also, the marginal productivity of its highways infrastructure is higher compared
to other transport infrastructures in Cameroon. In addition, there are potential efficiency gains and
economic benefits of investing conjointly in different infrastructure subsectors, especially in highways,
electricity, railways, and ports. Bougna and Noumba Um highlight the institutional failures and
deficiencies in Cameroon’s infrastructure, which constrain the implementation of structural infrastructure
projects.
Tapping into domestic and regional savings, improving the business environment, implementing
public–private partnerships effectively, and attracting private equity investors to support infrastructure
development are necessary conditions for putting infrastructure at the heart of Cameroon’s economic
transformation.
Avom and Malah Kuete’s chapter 11 on “Structural Transformation and Productivity Growth in
Cameroon” evaluates the contribution of structural transformation to labor productivity growth in
Cameroon over a 40-year period. Using the McMillan–Rodrik decomposition approach, they show that
structural transformation, viewed as a progressive reallocation of the workforce from sectors with low
productivity to those with high productivity, has contributed little to the increase in labor productivity
growth. It is actually the so-called “within component” that explains most of the productivity gains, while
the “between component” has been rather weak. Even more, the dynamic share of this structural
transformation was negative throughout the period covered by the study.
This is not surprising. As explained in the chapter 12 by Kilolo, Cameron, Pedro, and Mastaki on
“Economic Diversification in Cameroon: A Trade–DSM Analysis,” despite its rich endowments of natural
resources, the Cameroonian economy remains undiversified and vulnerable to exogenous shocks as an
exporter of unprocessed primary products. With the ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Area
(AfCFTA) in 2021, the Cameroonian authorities intend to follow an export-led industrialization strategy.
They expect the country to become the “factory of the new industrial Africa” through its Plan Directeur
d’Industrialisation (PDI; industrial masterplan). The chapter examines such ambitions using the
Trade–DSM approach and finds that Cameroon has the largest export potential for food-related products
and other products not prioritized in the PDI, unfortunately.
Sorgho’s chapter 13 on “Cameroon: Trade Costs, Trade Facilitation, and Regional Integration” studies
the challenges related to governance and trade costs, which hinder its development and ability to attract
investment and promote trade. It focuses on trade-related issues, in particular trade facilitation and Central
Africa’s regional integration. The empirical analysis shows that Cameroon can substantially reduce its
trade costs by reducing time-waiting for customs procedures at its borders and playing a stronger
leadership role in Central Africa.
Structural transformation also depends critically on the stock, quality, and use of human
“infrastructure.” As a theory of earnings, human capital theory has provided the rationale for policies to
combat poverty around the world. It aims to explain people’s decisions to invest in education and training
and the pattern of their lifetime earnings. Individuals’ different levels of investment in education and

17
 training are then explained in terms of their expected returns from the investment. Investments in
education and training entail costs in both the form of direct expenses and foregone earnings during the
investment period, so only those individuals who will be compensated by sufficiently higher lifetime
earnings will choose to invest. It follows that, people who expect to work less in the labor market and have
fewer labor market opportunities, such as women or minorities, are less likely to invest in human capital,
and more likely to remain in poverty.
The standard neoclassical theory of human capital is to view it as the set of marketable skills of the labor
force. It is the stock of knowledge or characteristics the worker has (either innate or acquired) that
determines his or her “productivity” and marketability. Such knowledge is a form of capital in which
workers make a variety of investments in order to remain attractive to firms throughout their career. The
fundamental argument is that investing in education leads to economic growth through increased
productivity, social stability, and healthier lifestyles.
The remaining chapters of this section of the Handbook highlight the rigidity, the limitations, and the
failures of the policy frameworks derived from traditional human capital theory. There are so many market
failures and nonmarket dynamics in education and training that the assumptions underlying human capital
theory make it a shaky basis for policy. Various structural factors (from demography to financing and
social norms) and fundamental distortions invalidate the basic dynamics of supply and demand. Most of
the individuals and social groups often excluded from the human capital market do not have the
opportunity and freedom to make such a choice. Besides, for most women and minorities around the
world, investing in their human capital yields low returns in lifetime earnings.
“The Political Economy of Contemporary Youth in Cameroon,” chapter 14 by Eloundou, Giroux, and
Tenikue, is once a case study of Cameroon’s political economy, a substantive hypothesis, and a
methodological tool for forecasting the future of African societies in a context of educational expansion,
demographic transition, and economic divergence. Its central thesis is that Cameroon has a real
opportunity to turn its current generation of youth into its greatest. Seizing this potential depends on
strategic efforts to cultivate and empower this generation along economic, demographic, social, and
political spheres. To put it differently, this entails a holistic development of youth and their human capital
along four concentric circles that include inner personal growth, family life, cognitive and labor market
skills, and civic life. A genuine policy commitment to such holistic development is a non-negotiable
prerequisite for harnessing a sizable dividend for the country and averting the specter of social crises that
would befall the country in the absence of deep and timely investments in youth.
Housseini and Boudarbat’s chapter 15 on “Cameroon’s Labor Market Dynamics and Prospects”
provides a comprehensive assessment of Cameroon’s labor market, with a focus on the dynamics and
patterns of key labor market indicators and factors affecting performance in the labor market. Their
analysis uses both macro- and microeconomic approaches and combines country-level times-series data
from the World Bank World Development Indicators and household survey data produced by Cameroon’s
National Institute of Statistics. They observe an overall limited increase in the capacity of the Cameroonian
economy to absorb its labor force, with a fluctuating pattern over time. Second, Housseini and Boudarbat
show that the positive dynamics observed in labor force participation, employment, and unemployment
actually hide the precarity of jobs and poor working conditions prevailing in the country. Third, their
results reveal that significant gaps persist across different groups of the population in terms of labor market
outcomes, and women, youth, low-educated people, and the population of northern regions of the country
are the most affected groups by the scarcity of formal and decent jobs. This analysis also corroborates
previous findings of the literature showing that gender, education, area of residence, and economic sector
of employment are key drivers of labor market outcomes in Cameroon. To mitigate the growing
demographic pressure in Cameroon’s labor market and convert it into a demographic dividend, there is a
need to accelerate the structural transformation of the Cameroonian economy, invest more in education and
human capital, and therefore set up conditions for extensive job creation in more formal and more
productive sectors. Additionally, targeted economic policies aiming to formalize the labor market and
expand social protection programs, especially for women and youth, would help in improving employment
and earning prospects for the growing and young Cameroonian population.
In Chapter 16, Wirba, Akem, and Baye analyze the other side of the coin, that is “Cameroon’s Informal
Labor Market.” It largely harbors female workers, engaged mainly in low-productivity and low-paying

18
 jobs. They investigate the sticky-floor—a wider earnings gap at the top end of the earnings distribution,
and the glass-ceiling phenomena—a wider earnings gap at the bottom in the informal labor market as a
whole and across its segments. Using labor market survey results and a framework to account for
selectivity bias and resolve the index number problem of the standard decomposition, Wirba, Akem, and
Baye examine earnings differentials across the unconditional earnings distribution. They find compelling
evidence of a sticky-floor phenomenon in the informal labor market, manifested essentially among wage
earners. Returns to experience mitigate the gender earnings gap at the mean, and 10th and 50th percentiles
of the unconditional earnings distribution. Female workers have an unambiguous human-capital-based
advantage over their male counterparts at the mean, lower tail, and median of the distribution.
Zamo-Akono and Song-Ntamack’s chapter 17 on “Drivers of Earnings Inequality in Urban Cameroon”
analyzes the dynamics and extent of earnings inequality in urban areas in Cameroon. Using data from the
National Institute of Statistics, covering nearly two decades, they show that earnings inequality fell sharply
between 2001 and 2010, and rose between 2010 and 2014, with persistent inequality at the upper tail of the
distribution. They use the Recentered Influence Function regression to examine the impact of supply and
demand factors on wage distribution and inequality indicators. Their results indicate that while secondary
education is likely to reduce earnings inequality, higher education, job informality, and self-employment
appear to be factors that increase inequality.
There is strong consensus among economists on the social and private benefits of education, which
increases people’s productivity and creativity, enhances innovation and the use of advanced technologies,
and promotes economic and social progress. But while some argue that investment in education has a
positive effect, such as profitability,others contend that the effect of investment on education can be small
or even negative. Some others even claim the existence of a Laffer curve on returns to education. Dia
Kamgnia’s and Kamdem’s chapter 18, “Education: The Hypothesis of Negative Returns,” uses household
survey results, in which only 9% of the individuals worked in the formal sector under a contract, to study
the issue. They find positive and significant returns to education, as high as 80% for women. But they
highlight the predominance of the informal sector, which has become the only viable option for making a
modest living, even for those with secondary, vocational, and tertiary education.
Decentralization is a centerpiece in Cameroonian’s government institutions’ design. Tchuente’s chapter
19 on “Early Human Capital Accumulation and Decentralization” takes the study of human capital
accumulation at the local level. He elaborates a simple hierarchy model for the analysis of the effects of
power devolution. The model predicts overall positive effects of decentralization with larger effects when
the local authority processes useful information on how to better allocate the resources. The estimation of
the effects of 2010’s power devolution to municipalities in Cameroon suggests a positive impact of
decentralization on early human capital accumulation. The value added by decentralization is the same for
Anglophone and Francophone municipalities; the effects of decentralization are larger for advanced levels
of primary school.
Myerson has long promoted the benefits of decentralized democracy (2015). In his chapter 20,
“Comments on Decentralization in Cameroon,” he argues that decentralization can be a driving force for
development, democracy, and better government in Cameroon; but the recent decentralization reform
seems unlikely to achieve its promise without some further reforms. It is suggested that the system for the
popular election of municipal councils should be changed to an open-list proportional representation
system. Where higher officials of municipal and regional governments are indirectly elected by municipal
councilors, the municipal councilors should also have the power to recall and replace these officials. The
powers of the centrally appointed prefects and governors should be limited to monitoring and advising
their municipal and regional councils.
In his chapter 21, “Determinants of the Performance of the Education System: The Role of Institutions,”
Noumba investigates the effect of institutions on primary and secondary school enrollment, controlling for
other key variables. His empirical analysis, based on a standard education production function, which is
specified and estimated using the SURE method (Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equations), finds some
heterogeneity in the effect of institutions on the performance of the education system. Institutional factors
seem to have had a positive and significant effect on primary school enrollment but no effect on secondary
school enrollment. Heterogeneity is also observed in the effect of public spending on education as a share
of GDP, which appears to be positive and significant on primary school enrollment and not on secondary

19
 school enrollment. He concludes that a high level of GDP growth rate would not be a necessary and
sufficient condition for improving the Cameroonian education system performance. Therefore, to boost
educational performance, the Government should implement reforms beyond the education sector and
adopt measures to reduce political instability and improve good governance. An effective health policy
would also help to achieve the same goal.
Good health is an essential component of human capital. In advanced economies, healthcare systems
matter for the macroeconomy because of their large size in outputs, employment, and research. They also
have major implications for the long-term sustainability of public finance, while healthcare spending can
have substantial multiplier effects in the short term. In developing countries such as Cameroon, good
health can influence productivity and labor force participation. Spending levels on healthcare are often
determined by income levels, population age structures, epidemiological profiles, and other factors.
Ntembe’s chapter 22 on “Health Outcomes and Health Care Financing in Cameroon” discusses trends in
health outcomes and health expenditures. It develops a fully modified Ordinary Least Squares estimator for
cointegrating regressions that include deterministic variables as regressors and allows an integration
process so that the stationary errors can be serially correlated and the regressors to be independent of each
other. His empirical analysis shows that public expenditure, immunization, and per capita income have a
significant long-run relationship with infant and under-5 mortality in Cameroon. These results suggest that
more public resources could improve health outcomes.
The chapter 23 by Tchouaket Nguemeleu, Robins, Belanger, Sia, and Sieleunou on “Economic
Evaluations of Health Financing Programs” examines Cameroon’s healthcare system, which has faced
many challenges. Health outcomes are poor and the country’s medical infrastructure and available human
resources fail to meet the demand for care. The chapter stresses the need for the continuous monitoring and
evaluation of Cameroon’s healthcare sector financing, both in the current COVID-19 pandemic as well as
in the post-pandemic period. Such critical appraisal of current health financing programs is necessary to
achieve optimal, effective, efficient, and sustainable investment that can promote healthcare for the
Cameroonian population over the long term.
Last, Fregene and Kahasha’s chapter 24 on “Agriculture Transformation” focuses on another critical
element of Cameroon’s economic transformation. The chapter examines the main challenges of the
country’s agriculture sector. It presents the Government’s strategy to transform agriculture, and lessons
from successful approaches that are relevant to Cameroon’s objectives.
Part III on “Macroeconomic Policies and Institutional Practices” focuses on what is usually considered
the fundamental requirements for effective economic transformation.
Sound macroeconomic policies and effective institutions are universally considered prerequisites for
sustained growth and economic development. But what exactly constitutes “sound macroeconomic”
policies and “effective institutions” in a particular country context and time? Perhaps more than any other
external economic shock in recent times, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fragility and
inadequateness of the conventional macroeconomic framework, long promoted by international financial
institutions for developing countries such as Cameroon.
The generic macroeconomic objectives of simultaneously achieving and maintaining internal balance
(the situation where the economy is in full employment and the level of activity consistent with a very low
and stable rate of inflation) and external balance (the situation where the economy has a balance of
payments on current and capital accounts combined, which is sustainable, at least in the medium run) at all
costs have been endorsed by Cameroon and other African countries since the early 1990s. After several
decades of IMF and World Bank programs, the country has “successfully” designed and implemented
macroeconomic adjustment programs and policy measures to achieve these twin goals.
Numerous positive IMF Article IV reports, which are broadly consistent in their analysis with the World
Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment, indicate that the quality of macroeconomic
management has improved, or remained broadly stable, in Cameroon over a decade despite the severe
negative shocks recorded (most notably the 2014 slump in commodity prices). Yet, like most African
countries, Cameroon experienced very low growth in recent decades. In 1990, its GDP per capita measured
PPP (purchasing power parity) (constant 2017 international dollars), was $3,200.1 In 2020, it was
$3,600—an almost insignificant increase for a country of about 30 million inhabitants in 2022, and one
well-endowed with natural wealth, decent levels of physical capital, and enormous human talents.

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 Cameroon’s economic performance is even weaker when observed through the lens of GDP per capita
(measured in constant local currency): in 2020, after six decades of independence, it was CFAF 640,000,
compared to CFAF 786,000 in 1986 (a decline of 18.6% in 34 years). This decline was not due to the
pandemic: in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 shock, Cameroon’s GDP per capita (measured in constant local
currency) was CFAF 652,000—that is, a decline of 17% compared to the 1986 peak. Clearly, the evidence
of improved economic wellbeing due to macroeconomic policies geared toward internal and external
imbalances is flawed. There is something profoundly inadequate in Cameroon’s macroeconomic
framework and policies, which the proforma focus on internal and external balance does not capture.
Analytical and policy justification for rigid adherence to the objectives of internal and external balance,
narrowly defined, is quantified arbitrarily and measured with indicators reminiscent of the European
Union’s Growth and Stability Pact for economic convergence (inflation rate of less than 2% inflation,
annual government deficit not to exceed 3% of GDP, government debt not to reach 60% of GDP, current
account balance in equilibrium with a limited deficit and to be fully financed by concessional funds, etc.).
Cameroon’s macroeconomic prescription could not have yielded the expected benefits. Its objective of
strictly achieving internal balance was misguided and unrealistic. Internal balance is a situation in which
consumption in an economy roughly equals production—which is not necessarily desirable for a low- or
lower-middle-income economy such as Cameroon’s. Moreover, treating full employment and price
stability under the same single umbrella of “internal balance” has been justified by the belief or the
assumption that if one maintained a level of effective demand, which preserved full employment, one
would also find that the money price level was reasonably stable. As noted by Meade, “The reason for
making this tacit or open assumption was, of course, due to a tacit or open assumption that the money
wage rate was normally either constant or at least very sluggish in its movements … This may have been a
very sensible assumption to make in the 1930s. It is more doubtful whether it was a sensible assumption to
make in the immediate post-war years” (1978, pp. 424–425). Meade’s commentary was meant for
advanced economies. It is even more relevant for developing economies such as Cameroon’s, which can be
viewed as being in “post-war”-type situations given their enormous savings and investment challenges,
and their urgent needs for some type of (re)construction.
Likewise, the external balance objective was defined too rigidly and unrealistically for Cameroon.
External balance occurs, roughly speaking, when the value of production in the economy and the value of
spending are never too far from being even. This happens theoretically when the revenues a country brings
in from exports is roughly equal to the money it spends on imports. That is, external balance occurs when
the current account is neither “excessively” positive nor “excessively” negative. In other words, external
balance is a current account position “that can be sustained by capital flows on terms compatible with the
growth prospects of the economy without resort to restrictions on trade and payments, so that the level of
international reserves is adequate and relatively stable” (Wong, 2002, p. 11).
The chapters in this section of the Handbook show that such a rigid macroeconomic view was idealistic
at best in Cameroon, and certainly impractical and improbable. Francois and Mata’s chapter 25 on “Fiscal
Policy Effectiveness Through the Lenses of Useful Government Consumption” lays out, in a pedagogical
manner, the logic of useful public consumption in the context of Edgeworth
substitutability/complementarity between public and private consumption and why it matters for fiscal
policy effectiveness in Cameroon. Government consumption is useful when it is directly internalized by
households in their utility such that it generates positive or negative externalities that alter households’
utility. The chapter presents some empirical evidence of Edgeworth substitutability of government
consumption based on a permanent income theory of consumption. This naturally leads to the examination
of the implication of this empirical evidence of useful government consumption and its relevance to fiscal
policy design and effectiveness in Cameroon. Francois and Mata conclude with a brief discussion on why
workhorse general equilibrium models need to explicitly incorporate useful government consumption
when evaluating the impact of fiscal policy involving changes in government consumption in Cameroon.
Bougna and Nguimkeu’s chapter 26 on “Fiscal Decentralization, Entrepreneurship, and Firm
Productivity in Cameroon” examines the country’s macroeconomic framework from an institutional
perspective. They investigate the impact of fiscal decentralization on entrepreneurship and firm
productivity. They simulate counterfactual changes in taxation policy on the regional distribution of firm
outcomes. Their results show the potential of optimal and adapted tax reforms in fostering business

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 creation, increased formalization, and aggregate income gains across and within regions in Cameroon.
These findings suggest that a well-targeted regionally decentralized taxation policy has the potential to
improve the overall socioeconomic ecosystem by attracting an optimal size of entrepreneurship in each
region and hence favoring a more efficient cross-regional distribution of income.
Monga’s chapter 27 “Public Debt: Beyond Accounting” addresses fears and facts about the Cameroon
government’s indebtedness and the country’s financing framework. Public debt (deficits) should be
decomposed to reveal its origins: change between macro factors, public investment, or politically
motivated measures and other misbehavior. This is essential for assessing both whether or not the increase
in debt was justified, and whether debt is sustainable. Monga argues that public debt is an indispensable
financing instrument for developing countries. By definition, they are low- or middle-income countries
often with great needs in public services, which they cannot finance with tax revenue alone. Like others,
Cameroon has large infrastructure needs, that, despite an increase in saving, it cannot finance internally. To
the extent that debt finance is used to fund useful and productive public infrastructure, increases in public
debt are justified. The chapter argues that under plausible assumptions, infrastructure improvements can,
both directly and through their effect on foreign direct investment (FDI), increase growth sufficiently to
eventually decrease the debt–GDP ratio. The effects of specific infrastructure dimensions on FDI, and in
turn of FDI on growth, should be the focus of more research. Rather than setting arbitrary limits on
debt–GDP ratio, the focus of international development institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank or
the African Development Bank should be on making sure that increases in debt, if they take place, are
indeed used for the right purposes, including and especially public infrastructure. The focus should be on
governance and surveillance structures aimed at allowing a good use of debt, thus reassuring investors and
decreasing spreads.
The chapter 28 by Muñoz on “Withholding Trust: Business Taxpayers and the Value-Added Tax in
Cameroon” provides a micro analysis of fiscal policy and tackles a serious hindrance to economic activity
in the country. Looking at a feature of the tax system known as the value-added tax (VAT) withholding,
Muñoz shows that commercial might and managerial standards are equated and couched in terms of civic
morality. The result is a deeply discriminatory tax system that treats all but a small minority of businesses
as untrustworthy.
Amin’s chapter 29 on “The CFA Franc Zone: The Financial Sector and Economic Growth in CEMAC”
examines Cameroon’s macroeconomic policies from the perspective of monetary and financial policies.
The CFA franc zone is one of the world’s oldest currency arrangements. Amin assesses the financial sector
of the zone and analyzes the role of the financial sector on the growth of the private sector and economic
expansion. He concludes that the weak financial system of the CFA franc zone, which results from the
monetary union, has hindered the economic expansion because of limited private sector financing.
The chapter 30 by Bikai, Kenkouo, Essiane, and Mbohou Mama, “The Monetary and Financial Sector in
Cameroon: Structure, Performance, and Vulnerabilities,” also assesses the performance of Cameroon’s
financial system and outlines its main vulnerabilities and the challenges facing the conduct of monetary
policy. It confirms that in Cameroon, as well as in CEMAC in general, the financial sector remains
shallow, poorly developed, and with little involvement in the creation of added value in member
economies.
Tawah’s chapter 31 on “Financing Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Cameroon” also addresses
macroeconomic policies from a microeconomic angle. It examines bank financing to small and
medium-sized enterprises. It carries out empirical analyses to determine the effect of the characteristics of
the firm on small and medium-sized enterprises’ access to working capital from banks. It shows that the
size of the firm, its legal status, and some foreign activities could improve access to bank finance for
SMEs. Because access to funding is significantly related to the size of the firm, medium to large firms
have a clear advantage relative to smaller firms in obtaining bank financing for both working capital and
investment.
The chapter 32 by Mbaye, Gueye, and Benjamin on “Female Entrepreneurship in Africa: Characteristics
and Determinants in Cameroon” echoes some of the findings of the Tawah chapter. They examine data on
formal and informal firms in Cameroon and explore the links between female direction of firms and the
obstacles known to keep firms from reaching their full potential. The strong presence of women in the
informal sector can be explained by several factors, including the size of their business activities, their

22
 poor access to education and training as well as to financing, and institutional and sociocultural constraints.
Using a survey of formal and informal enterprises in Yaoundé and Douala (Cameroon’s two largest cities),
they show women to be more exposed to symptoms of informality and precariousness than men. The types
of activities most associated with female entrepreneurship are very small businesses, which are more
excluded from most public infrastructure services including water, electricity, telephone, and Internet
infrastructure services than are male-directed firms.
A very strong case has been made by economists to put institutions—defined as “the rules of the game”
by North (1990)—at the top of the list of economic performance. They have done so by challenging the
standard economic explanation for the failure of countries like Cameroon to improve their GDP per capita
despite their natural resources and endowments.
In his Lionel Robbins Lectures, Acemoglu lists and refutes the traditional economic explanation of
underdevelopment: “Physical capital differences (poor countries don’t save enough); Human capital
differences (poor countries don’t invest enough in education and skills); ‘Technology’ differences (poor
countries don’t invest enough in R&D and technology adoption, and don’t organize their production
efficiently)” (Acemoglu, 2004). He then suggests that institutions, defined more precisely as “the formal
and informal rules governing economic and political interactions, are the major determinant of the
cross-country differences in economic performance. Understanding the effect of institutions on economic
outcomes and why institutions vary across countries must be a first step in any attempt to improve the
long-run performance of less-developed nations in the world.”
Even African countries such as Cameroon, ranked low on the “effectiveness” of their political
institutions and labeled “not democratic,” still must have a very strong and effective institutional security
apparatus to maintain an authoritarian regime for many decades. Could it be the case then that political
leaders in some countries deliberately pick and choose the type of institutions that they truly want to build
and make highly performing (State security for instance), while deliberately neglecting and even actively
weakening other institutions whose role is not viewed as essential for their purposes and goals? This would
explain the mystery of “poor governance” in low- or lower-middle-income countries where political
settlements have not been well negotiated among the most powerful groups (Khan, 2018 and 2012).
Viviane Ondoua Biwolé’s chapter 33 on “Models of Governance in Cameroon’s PublicAdministration”
concludes this section of the Handbook. While it does not directly discuss these theoretical debates over
institutional design, it provides insights into ways of building a prosperous economy in a fragile, even
inoperative administrative environment. She questions the pertinence of the governance model of
Cameroon’s public administration, where free-market levers do not necessarily correspond to the values
that Cameroonian society identifies with; hence the necessity to re-think another governance model that
would promote an endogenous social imaginary.
Finally, Christelle Amina Djouldé’s chapter 34, “The Economy of Corruption in Cameroon’s Cartoons”
analyzes editorial cartoons with a view to decoding paradigms of corruption in Cameroon, a major obstacle
to the country’s economic progress. In the light of the “pictorial turn,” it examines how satiric images are
material that make it possible to understand the complexity of corruption. Her contribution combines the
comparison of various sources to show how the editorial cartoon offers a painting of corruption. It also
discusses the relationship between “the tyranny of corruption” and the persistence of Cameroon’s
underdevelopment.
A last set of studies grouped in Part IV, “Looking Forward” suggests the way forward for the
Cameroonian economy, focusing on natural resource management, the comparative analysis of
nonrenewable resource stocks and capital goods, electricity supply for manufacturing (which should be the
main engine of growth for Cameroon to reach its medium- and long-term economic goals), employment
generation strategies, the challenges and opportunities of artificial intelligence and big data analytics, the
economics of migration, the economy of reliance in humanitarianism as a development finance tool, and a
rethinking of Cameroon’s role as a potential driving engine of the economies of the central African region
and beyond.
The section starts with three chapters co-authored by Bahel, Keutiben, and Tatoutchoup. In chapter 35,
“The Analytics of Natural Resource Management,” they present the theoretical framework of how society
allocates scarce natural resources. They distinguish between the cases of nonrenewable resources and
renewable resources. Nonrenewable resources differ from renewable resources because they have a fixed

23
 stock of reserves that, once removed, cannot be replaced. Extracting a unit of resource today means that a
lower resource stock will be available for future extraction. For both renewable and nonrenewable
resources, the economic analysis aims to determine the flow of production over time and whether and
when the resource stock will be depleted. In the case of nonrenewable resources, they present Hotelling’s
theory of the mine as well as its extensions. In the case of renewable resources, they examine the
derivation of Faustmann’s optimal rotation for even-aged forests.
These building blocks are used in the next chapter to test the dynamic efficiency of Cameroon’s
resource management. In the second chapter 36, “Testing the Dynamic Efficiency of Extraction of
Nonrenewable Resources,” Tatoutchoup, Keutiben, and Bahel examine whether nonrenewable resources
are extracted and managed efficiently in Cameroon. The analysis is performed by empirically evaluating
the consistency between the theoretical extraction path dictated by the Hotelling model and its various
extensions and the actual extraction path. They test the dynamic efficiency of the theoretical path of the
main nonrenewable resources produced in Cameroon and conclude that the Hotelling model cannot explain
the evolution of the observed price path of these resources.
In their third chapter 37 on “Oil Revenue Management: Cameroon’s Experience,” Keutiben,
Tatoutchoup, and Bahel start with the observation that Cameroon’s growth performance and development
outcomes have not reached the level expected from the country’s oil wealth and abundant resources
endowments. They review the theory and practice of oil revenue management in the context of developing
countries and highlight many political economy factors to explain why Cameroon has not harnessed its
natural resources (especially oil) for sustained growth and shared prosperity. The chapter underscores that
if Cameroon has ever suffered, or is suffering, from any “curse,” it should be referred to as an “institutional
curse.” Keutiben, Tatoutchoup, and Bahel conclude that accountability to the people of Cameroon, not to
donors, is essential for transparency and good governance.
Kakeu’s chapter 38 on “Comparing Nonrenewable Resources Stocks and Capital Goods” uses shadow
pricing for comparing nonrenewable natural resource stocks and capital goods. It shows that, from a social
welfare perspective, there are situations where the social worth of nonrenewable natural resource stocks is
greater than the social worth of capital goods. Numerical examples on shadow pricing are provided for
illustration. The shadow pricing metric and the market pricing metric do not lead to the same conclusion
when it comes to comparing natural resource stocks and capital goods. The chapter emphasizes the
importance of incorporating information on natural resource stocks in optimally managing a country’s
public wealth. Public policy recommendations relating to the optimal management of natural resource
stocks in Cameroon are discussed.
Electricity shortages are a serious threat to manufacturing exports—trade will be the driving engine to
Cameroon’s economy for the foreseeable future. Amadu and Ngah’s chapter 39 on “Electricity Supply and
Manufacturing Exports” estimates the impact of power deficits on manufacturing exports. Using a vector
error correction model, they show that a percentage decrease in electricity supply causes a reduction in the
exports of manufactured products by 1 percentage point in the short term and 6 percentage points in the
long term. Other covariates suggest that a 1% increase in manufacturing causes the labor force to increase
by 7% in the short term with the long-term value not being significant. They conclude that increasing
electricity supply and making it more affordable and accessible to manufacturing industries should be at
the core of Cameroon’s industrial policy, economic development programs, and the national development
strategy.
Few issues have done more damage to the credibility of economics as a “scientific” discipline and to the
reputation of economists than unemployment and underemployment. This is not surprising: As noted by
Solow, “the labor market connects quickly with everything else in the economy and its performance
matters more directly for most people than that of any other market” (1980, p. 2). Despite major advances
in contemporary macroeconomic theory, policymakers and citizens in most countries have been
particularly frustrated by the inability of economists to provide reliable general blueprints and actionable
policy frameworks to cure pervasive and persistent joblessness, which is perhaps the worst of economic
and social ills.
Monga’s chapter 40 on “A Blueprint for Employment Creation” observes that the policy prescriptions
derived from traditional, dominant models have aimed at making labor markets work better. Their results
have been often disappointing, especially in Africa and in countries like Cameroon, where the labor

24
markets should be analyzed mainly in disequilibrium, because transactions take place there at
non-market-clearing wages, or where the markets are missing. There is evidence of involuntary
unemployment and massive underemployment, which suggests that the wage structure cannot receive, or
respond to, the typical policy signals. The chapter discusses the challenges to employment creation in
developing country contexts—especially through industrialization—and the fears generated by the Fourth
Industrial Revolution, and offers a policy framework for creating employment.
Yameogo’s chapter 41 on “The Economics of Migration and Remittances: New Opportunities” analyzes
Cameroon’s international emigration patterns, which turned from an elite education-type of migration to a
more adventurous type following the 1980s economic crises. More young Cameroonians aspired to escape
economic hardships and find employment especially in developed countries. Migration is more a family’s
decision where the family invests in the costs of migration and in return, expects the migrant to send
remittances. Remittance inflows spiked over the past few decades and have replaced foreign direct
investments. With a strong and educated diaspora abroad, especially in the OECD, Cameroon has a great
opportunity to tap into their human, financial, and social capital to boost its economic transformation and
create decent employment for those left behind.
The chapter 42 by Fosso Wamba and Queiroz on “Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Analytics in
Cameroon: Challenges, Benefits, and Potential Applications” explores the dynamics and behavior of a
representative lower-middle-income country, namely Cameroon, toward the digital transformation,
specifically regarding Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics (BDA) as the key cutting-edge
technologies for the economy’s digitalization. Despite Cameroon’s poor performance in different
international rankings, mainly related to infrastructure and information and communications technology
(ICT) adoption, the country is an attractive market for digital transformation projects. This chapter
discusses the drivers and enablers of Cameroon’s digitalization supported by AI and BDA and a
framework for action by the government, universities, practitioners, industries, international organizations,
scholars, and other interested stakeholders.
The book ends with two reflective contributions: Kemedjio’s chapter 43 “The Economy of
Humanitarianism” analyzes the contradictions of humanitarianism as a benevolent approach to
nation-building in Cameroon and beyond. It then addresses the shame associated with foreign aid, through
the works of several thinkers, including Mongo Beti and Imbole Mbue, two major literary figures from
Cameroon. It also examines the shame associated with humanitarian aid and concludes with thoughts on
the fictional nature of a humanitarian State.
The final contribution to this Handbook, chapter 44 by Etounga-Manguelle, is more optimistic with
caution. Endowed by its history and geography with considerable assets for its development, the country
initially called Kamerun, which was a German protectorate from 1884 to 1918, before being placed under
a mandate of French and English trusteeship from 1918 to 1960, is today at a crossroads. For since 2016
(with the eruption of an armed rebellion in the country’s English-speaking regions), it has been subjected
to a sociopolitical crisis that endangers its State institutions and threatens its national integrity and its
survival as a flagship nation with a rich and diverse history. Etounga-Manguelle’s chapter sums up the
challenges of the new sociopolitical situation of the country, whose economy shows a great deal of
resilience, despite the gravity of the ills that weigh it down. These ills are due essentially to poor
governance and the lack of leadership. But the current daunting challenges facing Cameroon do not in any
way mortgage its future when the country, reconciled with itself, will awaken and shine with all its
radiance.

25
 I.4 ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR, INSOCIALIZATION, AND THE WEIGHT OF
HISTORY

The requirement to adhere to academic standards in this Handbook does not, however, forbid either
nostalgia, or at times even anger. But transcending these emotions, the texts assembled in this volume
above all throw light upon the modes of economic interactions, actors’ decisions, management of
households, businesses, and public institutions, socialization, even re-socialization very particular to
Cameroonians. Traditional sociology claims that the genesis of the self, which is the first stage of
socialization, is an automatic process essentially driven by institutions like the family, the school, and the
social groups to which one belongs. This linear view of the modes of fashioning social textures does not
really suit the environment described here. The sites where socialization occurs—those often-informal
spaces where a Cameroonian becomes aware of being either “fully part” of the economic and social action
or a piece of social rubbish “fully apart”—are very different from the sugary reality described in sociology
books. And with reason: over in Douala or Yaoundé the family and the educational system often have very
different roles from what can be seen in Brasilia or Helsinki. Their aims of socialization are generally the
same as those of traditional sociology—teach the fundamentals of life in society, transmit ways of living,
inculcate values like a taste for effort, and work toward aims that society considers important.
However, in a Cameroon where the political leadership and the elites often have shown neither vision
nor ethical concern, the socialization of the economic agent in households, businesses, and administrations
is a chaotic and unstable process of legitimizing the philosophies of oppression, exchanging survival
techniques, appropriating instruments of power, and validating the symbolics of self-hatred—that is, of
others. The short and insightful commentaries of Ambroise Kom and Fabien Nkot are, in this respect,
particularly revealing. It is difficult to read them without catching a glimpse of the many dimensions of
what could be called insocialization—Cameroonian society’s extraordinary capacity for exhibiting and
deploying its stock of inhumanity and thus refusing to integrate into itself the citizens it produces, as if
inadvertently.
A panorama of existences marked out on one hand by, at times rigid, public policies and economic
systems derived from colonial certainties and on the other by the ingenuity and indocility of economic
agents whose creativity and energy know no law, rule, or constraint, the texts of this volume also shed light
on original modes of knowledge and practices.
This Handbook also approaches obliquely, almost surreptitiously, a few epistemological questions like
the problem of historical causality. This could, in fact, not be avoided, for the different contributions
essentially are expressed as freeze frame shots of a country caught in the act of self-questioning, at a
particularly interesting moment of its historical trajectory. What are the cause-and-effect relationships
between the phenomena that form the narrative framework of this work? Is the failure of the elite the cause
or simply the reflection of a mass resignation of social groups? Does the chicken precede the egg or the
reverse?
The answers to these questions are neither one-directional nor one-dimensional. They integrate what is
in econometrics called multi-collinearity, that is, the fact that explanatory variables identified as having an
impact on a dependent variable already influence each other. Therefore, before studying the causality
relationship between explanatory variables on one hand and dependent variables on the other, one should
examine the interaction existing between the explanatory variables themselves. The sociology of
Cameroon that is reflected in this book illustrates this problem and the fact that the country’s history
mingles several orders of causality: there are the material or “objective” data that one sets out in advance
to try to explain the changes and the phenomena of rupture; there are the data of fortuity, those incidents, at
times superficial but that play the role of the dissipative structures described by Ilya Prigogine (those
particles as trivial as they are unexpected that, by themselves, completely disrupt and upset an equilibrium
that was thought to be forever stable); and there are the final causes, as Paul Veyne would call them, those
obvious events on which the news tends to focus and to which the contributors of this book give priority.
The authors of this Handbook well know that the history of contemporary Cameroon is, however,
neither a simple superposition of these three types of histories nor a “multi-story construction” with a

26
material and economic basement, a sociocultural ground floor, all of it capped by a superstructure
consisting of events of current politics. They know that this history expresses itself in mixtures,
non-scientific amalgams, and the introduction of plots. Thus, the historical explanation consists in
clarifying the depth of a plot, in showing its progression, even if through a narrative schema that highlights
little causes. This is the approach followed by many authors of this collection: they tell touching and
delightful stories with a subjectivism not at all shameful—even when they are sad. According to their
preferences, they pick off the torments of a country to which they are all very attached, freely analyzing
the causes of the phenomena they describe and unapologetically expressing the reasons for their
certainties.
In such an approach, the imagination plays a crucial role in the selection of historical facts, the search
for the causes, and the modes of understanding and interpreting the real. It is the well-known problem of
causal imputation in the social sciences: as soon as one differentiates oneself from the quantitative methods
privileged by economists or statisticians to identify not only the significant variables but also the important
coefficients assigned to them and the meanings of the causalities, one exposes oneself to the risk of a
counter-narration able to support reverse theses with the same arguments. One must then transfer
explanatory schemes tested at that moment to situations observed in the past, or even to those to come. The
imagination gives life to the material that one observes and identifies. The memory and reminiscence then
take on a capital importance, with the risks of excess which that implies. That is no problem: several
chapters of theoretical economics in this Handbook ask us to be satisfied with suppositions of the
sociologist, anthropologist, or historian and with the novelist’s and poet’s dreams. The reader will
therefore be neither surprised nor disappointed to find in some contributions a strong dose of pessimism or
nostalgia.

I.5 POETICS OF SORROW AND THE GRAMMAR OF HAPPINESS

This Handbook also poses the uncomfortable questions: why such a disappointment? Why such a waste of
resources, competences, talents, and imagination? How can some citizens of this territory, which proudly
proclaims itself a Republic, put up with that? As of 2022, Douala, Cameroon’s largest city and economic
capital, has neither a museum, nor a library, nor a bookstore, nor a theater, nor a cinema or performance
hall worthy of the name. Even football, which everyone is mad about and which brings together social
classes and generations, is often played in pitifully sad stadiums. Only neighborhood bars, as noisy as they
are run-down, and a few nightclubs where each person reveals the social identity to which he aspires, seem
to constitute places of leisure. How in the world, wonders the New Yorker or Chilean passing through, do
they manage to overcome such stifling tedium? What justifies these big smiles, these bursts of laughter in
the torrid, humid heat, this contagious delight in life in places and at a time that seem cursed? How can one
decipher the grammar of happiness in this Cameroon that intrigues as much as it beguiles?
The secret of this informal art of living resides in the ability of Cameroonians to experience
micro-sensations. They assume their existences with a great deal of appetite, magnifying events that others
would find ordinary, celebrating without qualms the tiny rhythm intervals of days and nights, insisting on
the value of the slightest punctuation, picking off time like a melody played out in diatonic half steps. The
most amazing thing is that there is nothing artificial in their enthusiasm, and nothing self-conscious in the
solemnity with which they are able to show themselves happy. “Wise is the man who monotonizes his
existence, for then each minor incident seems a marvel” recommends Fernando Pessoa … “Monotonizing
existence, so that it won’t be monotonous. Making daily life anodyne, so that the littlest thing will amuse.”
Having become experts in the daily management of melancholy and tedium, the Cameroonians didn’t have
to read Pessoa in order to appropriate this exhortation.
Esthetics of disenchantment at the same time as poetics of the sorrow of existing, the collection
proposed here is also a chronicle of nostalgia. Nostalgia not of a mythical past reinvented to make one feel
good, but nostalgia of a dreamed future, a future that could have been if the collective imaginary had not
for so long been held hostage by a band of usurpers disguised as the country’s political elite.

27
 At a workshop to discuss the draft chapters of this Handbook and hosted by Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government (April 2–3, 2021), Joseph Stiglitz, Roger Myerson, Dani Rodrik, and Richard Joseph, whose
works have inspired research on Africa in general and Cameroon in particular for decades, provided
thoughtful and challenging reflections on the state of the world economy, the limits of export-led growth
strategies in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and trade wars, and the fragilities of global and
domestic governance systems. They also offered a rich set of ideas on the possible paths forward for
African economies. I would like to thank them for their guidance, generosity, and support. I am glad to
report that the contributors to this Handbook took up their challenges and did their best to outline credible
strategies for growth and more effective governance in Cameroon.
Without claiming absolute comprehensiveness, this Handbook aims to offer a broad survey of
knowledge, debates, and current thinking and research on the economics of Cameroon. It examines the
macroeconomic, microeconomic, and institutional issues faced by Cameroon using several approaches that
combine discussions of historical events and their hysteresis effects, theoretical arguments, results from
empirical studies, and relevant policy experiences. It includes technical and methodological contributions
on governance, growth, and transformation, but also think pieces on mindsets, behavior, and social norms.
It brings together a wide range of well-established economists and researchers who address issues from
various perspectives. The contributors tried to strike a balance between academic literature and policy
issues, between economic theory and practice, and between past knowledge and the unexplored ideas for
future research. I am grateful to their commitment to this intellectual venture and to their hard work.
I would like to acknowledge the enormous debt owed to Madeleine Velguth and Mankan Mohammed
Koné who translated several chapters in this volume from French; Bouba Housseini and Ambroise Kom
who helped me identify some great contributors and evaluate some of the early drafts; Nyemb Popoli who
graciously provided cartoons for the chapter on the economy of corruption; my colleague Kevin Drumm
who helped me to organize the work and managed the logistics of this project; and my students at
Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government who always raised the big questions that allowed me to identify
the most relevant issues to be covered. This Handbook would not be nearly the one that it is without the
strong support and careful attention to detail of all these colleagues. Last but not least, I would like to
thank Cameroonian visual artist Samuel Dallé for granting us the use of his artwork on the cover of this
handbook. The painting, entitled The Lighthouse, depicts the aesthetics of suffering, the brilliant agony of
some unrepentant characters, and also the resilience of ordinary people and the celebration of life and its
possibilities—all themes that seems appropriate to convey some of the messages of this Handbook.

NOTE
1. The data in this section is from the World Bank. See GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2017 international
$)—Cameroon | Data (worldbank.org).

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667–675.
Khan, M. (2018), “Political Settlements and the Analysis of Institutions,” African Affairs, 117(469): 636–655.
Kuznets, S. (1966), Modern Economic Growth: Rate, Structure and Spread. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Lin, J. Y. (2012), “Development 3.0,” Project Syndicate, June 14.
Lin, J. Y. and C. Monga (2014), “The Evolving Paradigms of Structural Change,” in B. Currie-Adler, R. Kanbur, D.
M. Malone, and R. Medhora (eds.), International Development: Ideas, Experience, and Prospects. New York:
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Meade, J. (1978), “The Meaning of ‘Internal Balance,”’ The Economic Journal, 88(351, September): 423–435.
Myerson, R. (2015), “Democratic Decentralization and Economic Development,” in C. Monga and J. Y. Lin (eds.),
Oxford Handbook of Africa and Economics. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 756–769.
North, D. (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. New York: Cambridge University
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Ocampo, J. A., Codrina Rada, and Lance Taylor (2009), Growth and Policy in Developing Countries: A Structuralist
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Renan, Qu’est-ce qu’une Nation? Translated by Ethan Rundell. Paris: Presses-Pocket.
Solow, R. M. (1980), “On Theories of Unemployment,” The American Economic Review, 70(1): 1–11.
Syrquin, M. (1988), “Patterns of Structural Change,” in H. Chenery and T. N. Srinivasan (eds.), Handbook of
Development Economics, Vol. 1. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier Science Publishers, pp. 203–273.
Wong, Chorng-Huey (2002), “Adjustment and Internal-External Balance,” in M. S. Khan, S. M. Nsouli, and C.-H.
Wong (eds.), Macroeconomic Management: Programs and Policies. Washington DC: IMF, pp. 10–37.

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 PART I

CONTEXT, LEGACIES, AND MINDSETS

30
 CHAPTER 1

THE CAMEROON ECONOMY

Historical Overview

JOHN MUKUM MBAKU

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The Republic of Cameroon (République du Cameroun), which is often referred to as “Africa in miniature,”
lies on the Gulf of Guinea and shares physical characteristics with both the Congo and Niger river basins
and the cultures of both regions meet and mingle freely in the country ( LeVine, 1971: 1–3). Cameroon
consists of 250 ethnocultural groups that were involuntarily brought together through colonialism, a
process that has significantly affected the country’s political economy. Cameroon has been governed
additionally by Germany, Great Britain, France, the now defunct League of Nations, and the United
Nations. In addition, Cameroon’s cultural history, and to a certain extent, its political economy, has been
influenced by Christianity, Islam, traditional religions, and several other factors, including globalization,
and the influx of various groups (e.g., Nigeria’s Igbos and Yorubas) from across the region into the
country (Mbaku, 2005: 1), as well as the internal migration of various groups, some of them occasioned by
population pressures and/or the search for opportunities for self-actualization in the country’s urban areas.
Cameroon is found on the Gulf of Guinea with Chad and the Central African Republic to the northeast;
the Republic of Congo, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea to the south; and Nigeria to the west. With a surface
area of 183,567 square miles (475,440 km2), a population of 26.55 million people (as of 2020) and an
average growth rate of 2.59 percent, Cameroon is located slightly north of the equator. During the period
2015–2020, the adolescent birth rate (births per 1,000 for women ages 15–19) was 105.8 (UNDP, 2020:
363).
The country’s landforms can be grouped into four regions: the northern plains; the central and southern
plateaus; the western highlands and mountains; and the lowlands along Cameroon’s coastline. While the
northern plains extend as far as Lake Chad, the central and southern plateau lies between 7 N and 9 N
latitude and extends to both the eastern and western borders of the country. The western highlands extend
southeastward from the country’s border with Nigeria and include the highest mountain peak in West
Africa, Mount Cameroon, which has an elevation of 13,436 feet (4,095 meters), covers 800 square miles
(2071.99 square kilometers), and rises from the waters of the Gulf of Guinea. Cameroon has a coastal zone
that measures less than 20 miles, lies in the area northwest of Mount Cameroon, and has many
swamplands, all of which are covered by mangrove trees and several types of vegetation.

31
 1.2 THE FOUNDING OF MODERN CAMEROON

On July 14, 1884, the German imperial flag was raised on the right bank of the Cameroon (Wouri) River,
officially establishing the colony of Kamerun. Further explorations would eventually expand the
boundaries of the colony to as far as Lake Chad (Mbaku, 2005: 24). On November 4, 1911, France ceded
territories (295,000 km2 of land called Neu-Kamerun) from French Equatorial Africa to German Kamerun
as part of the settlement of the Agadir (Morocco) Crisis, which was resolved by the Treaty of Fez (
Maderspacher, 2009: 453). During World War I, Kamerun was occupied by French, Belgian, and British
troops. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Germany officially renounced sovereignty over all its African
colonies, including Kamerun. The Treaty of Versailles, which ended the state of war between Germany
and the Allied Powers (1919), also decided the issue of who should have control over the territories
previously under German control (see Article 22 of the Treaty of Versailles). The Neu-Kamerun territories
were returned to French Equatorial Africa and the rest of the German Protectorate was partitioned into
British and French zones of influence, to be managed, first as League of Nations Mandates, and later as
UN Trust Territories, with France and Great Britain as the administering powers (Mbaku, 2005: 27–33).
France received four-fifths of the territory and administered it separate from its other colonies in the
region. Britain, which received one-fifth of the former German colony, divided it into two administrative
regions—British Northern Cameroons and British Southern Cameroons (Konings, 1999: 291). In
December 1958, the UN terminated France’s administering power over the UN Trust Territory of
Cameroons under French administration (“French Cameroons”) and subsequently, French and
Cameroonian authorities agreed to a timetable for independence, which was achieved on January 1, 1960,
with the new country taking the name République du Cameroun (Mbaku, 2005: 33; Joseph, 1977).
In UN-supervised plebiscites held in 1961, British Southern Cameroons voted to integrate with the
République du Cameroun and British Northern Cameroons opted to join Nigeria (Konings and Nyamnjoh,
2003: 37–40). Independence of British Southern Cameroons and unification with the French-speaking
République du Cameroun took place on October 1, 1961 to found the two-state Federal Republic of
Cameroon with Ahmadou Ahidjo as its first president (Johnson, 1970: 201). On May 20, 1972, the
federation was abolished in favor of a unitary state called the United Republic of Cameroon and in
November 1982, Ahmadou Ahidjo resigned and handed the apparatus of government to his prime minister,
Paul Biya—the latter has remained the country’s president to this day (2022).
On May 26, 1990, the Anglophone Cameroonian politician, Ni John Fru Ndi, founded the Social
Democratic Front (SDF), which became the first “opposition political party in Cameroon since multiparty
competition was outlawed in the country in 1966” (Mbaku, 2020a: 76). While Biya and his government
were opposed to efforts to return the country to multiparty democracy, domestic and external pressure
eventually forced them to capitulate and agree to open up national political spaces for competition, as well
as allow the formation of opposition political parties. In December 1990, the government officially
announced the return of multiparty competition to Cameroon (Mbaku, 2020a: 76).
Cameroon held its first presidential election after the legalization of multiparty politics on October 11,
1992 and Biya and his Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) emerged victorious after
capturing 39.98 percent of the votes cast to 35.9 percent for Fru Ndi and the SDF (Fombad, 2019: 348).
The country’s next presidential election was held on October 12, 1997 and it was won by Biya and the
CPDM with most opposition political parties boycotting the election (Mbaku, 2020a: 77). In 1996,
Cameroon amended the Constitution of June 2, 1972 and introduced the principle of separation of powers,
with what was expected to be an independent judiciary, and, in addition, introduced presidential term
limits and extended the presidential term from five to seven years—under this new provision, the
president’s term of office was limited to two seven-year terms. Biya, who was still serving the presidential
term that he had won in 1992 subsequently won the 1997 and 2004 presidential elections and, under the
provisions of the 1996 constitutional amendments, he was expected to retire from politics in 2011.
However, in 2008, and in anticipation of the 2011 presidential election, Biya, who was constitutionally
barred from standing in that election as a candidate for the presidency, had the constitution changed to
eliminate the two-term presidential term limit. As a result of the 2008 constitutional amendments, Biya is

32
 expected to remain President of Cameroon until at least 2025.
Since he came to power in 1982, Biya has structured the economy to allow him to use “repression or
appeasement” to significantly increase the survival of his regime (Harrijvan and Weerdesteijn, 2020: 315).
Over the years, Biya has used corruption to gain elite support and repressive measures to stem peaceful
protests against his activities (Fombad, 2004: 357–394). For example, in response to the 2016 peaceful
protests in the country’s Anglophone Regions, Biya sent federal security forces, who brutally suppressed
any efforts by the Anglophones to petition their government to address their grievances (Mbaku, 2019a:
1–12). In addition, the Biya regime banned Internet access to the two Anglophone Regions and effectively
cut off 20 percent of the population from the rest of the country and the world ( Mbaku, 2019a: 81). By the
summer of 2018, the international press was reporting that “as many as 2,000 Anglophone [Cameroonians]
had been killed and 170 [of their] villages had been burned down, effectively destroying valuable farmland
and homes” and creating an enormous economic and humanitarian crisis (Mbaku, 2019a: 81).
The peaceful protests that began in the Anglophone Regions in 2016 were designed to inform the
government and the rest of the world of the plight of Anglophone Cameroonians who were arguing that,
since reunification in 1961, they and their territory have suffered significant economic and political
marginalization at the hands of the Francophone-dominated central government. The decision by Biya to
respond to the peaceful protests with extremely repressive measures not only destroyed any prospects for
deepening and institutionalizing democracy in the country but also destroyed economic capacity and
brought Cameroon to the brink of disintegration.

1.3 THE MODERN CAMEROON ECONOMY AND ITS FOUNDATIONS

1.3.1 Germans and the Colonial Constitution

The laws and institutions that govern political economy in Cameroon today trace their origins to European
colonialism. Shortly after the establishment of the Kamerun Protectorate, Berlin took steps to provide its
newly acquired and highly prized territories with locus standi in the German legal system through a
constitution that could serve as a foundation for its governance structures, as well as for the development
of its economic resources (Rudin, 1938: 126–129). The colonial constitution was also expected to provide
a legal basis for all financial transactions between the Reichstag and the colonial territories ( Rudin, 1938:
126). Although the new constitution provided the institutional foundation for the development of an
exchange economy, most of the inhabitants of Kamerun did not participate in its development (Mbaku,
2018: 25; Rudin, 1938: 126–129).
The bill that became Kamerun’s constitution was presented to the Reichstag on January 12, 1886 and
subsequently enacted into law on April 10, 1886 and vested all the powers to control the peoples and
resources of Kamerun in the hands of the Kaiser. This “concentration of the authority in [the hands of the
Kaiser] was the legal device through which [German] traders sought to be as unhampered in administering
and exploiting the colonies as they had been in acquiring them” (Rudin, 1938: 129).

1.3.2 Christian Missions and European Traders

Before colonization, the economy of the territories, which later became the Kamerun Protectorate, was
characterized by “groups of indigenous cultivators, most of whom belonged to semi-autonomous or
autonomous tribal groups” (DeLorme, Kamerschen, and Mbaku, 1988: 146). The economy was dominated
by agricultural production, with foodstuffs and raw materials, such as cotton, raffia palms and palm
kernels, constituting the bulk of output. Shifting cultivation was the principal method of farming (Ntangsi,
1979: 24–26; Rudin, 1938: 106).
However, there were other forms of economic activities—many people weaved cloth, tilled the soil,
produced pottery and also worked with metal (Rudin, 1938: 112–113). Additionally, trade was quite
important to the economy of these territories—before official annexation in 1884, trade in these territories
was controlled by Europeans (who included English, French, and German traders) and indigenous, mostly
Duala, middlemen. Although British traders had “monopolized trade along the coastal region of [the
Cameroon River District], after 1860 the Germans, led by the Woermann firm, became [increasingly]

33
 involved in trade with the [Dualas]” (Ngoh, 1979: 4). C. Woermann, along with Jantzen & Thormählen,
were the only two German firms that operated in these territories (Rudin, 1938: 162, 219).
Although Duala monopolists served as effective middlemen between interior villages and European
traders at the coast, the Europeans were eager to seize and control these lucrative trade positions. Located
to the south and east of the Duala group of villages were the people of the Bakoko and the Bassa, who
controlled trade in the interior of the Kamerun Protectorate. These peoples fought bravely to keep the
Europeans or anyone else from usurping their middleman monopoly trade positions. Along the slopes of
Mount Cameroon could be found various villages belonging to the Bakweri ethnocultural group—these
peoples were mostly farmers and they would later be involved in a bitter struggle with German planters for
control of fertile farmlands (Ardener, 1996: 41).
European Christian missions played an important role in shaping economic conditions in the
pre-colonial territories. After the slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in the early 1830s, many
freed slaves from Jamaica desired to participate in an evangelical mission that would bring them back to
their African homeland (Ngoh, 1979: 3). Under the sponsorship of the London-based Baptist Missionary
Society (BMS), which had been involved in missionary work in Jamaica since 1813, the Jamaican
colonists established themselves on the Spanish island of Fernando Po, which, at the time, served as a
British naval base. The pioneering work of Jamaican Baptist missionary Joseph Merrick and his assistant,
Joseph Jackson Fuller, who arrived in Fernando Po in 1814 and began evangelical work among the Isubu
and Bimbia, is noteworthy (Joseph, 1980: 7). Before he died in 1848, Merrick had accomplished a great
deal “in printing, translations, teaching and proselytizing” in the Cameroon River District (Joseph, 1980:
7).
While the main objective of these pioneering missionaries was the saving of souls, there was an
important secular side to their work, which would have a significant impact on the development of the
pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial economy in Cameroon. Besides preaching the gospel, Merrick, for
example, was engaged in offering classes in the English language to converts, operating schools, running a
printing press, and teaching converts carpentry and agriculture. Through these activities, he helped young
Cameroonians develop necessary human capital and significantly enlarged the ability of the BMS to create
economic and development opportunities for converts (Joseph, 1980: 7).
BMS missionary Alfred Saker continued Merrick’s efforts, introduced a brick factory and provided
practical economic activities that were quite attractive to many local parents. It has been noted that “it was
enhanced communication with the English and other traders plying the coast, rather than communion with
the God of the missionaries, that most excited these Africans” and that it was “the capacity of these
churchmen to provide a much needed practical service that facilitated their peaceful acceptance” (Joseph,
1980: 7).
After fleeing Fernando Po in response to Spanish suppression of Protestant missions, Alfred Saker
moved to the mainland, settling in an area that he later named Victoria in honor of Queen Victoria (Ngoh,
1979: 3). Victoria was founded on land ceded to Saker by King William I of Bimbia, through a treaty
signed between the two on August 23, 1858 (Ardener, 1996: 159; Brackney, 2021: 129). As the settlement
at Victoria grew, it attracted Christian converts from Bimbia, Bota, and various neighboring Bakweri
villages. Saker, now serving as the governor of the Victoria settlement, drafted a constitution, set up a
Court of Justice, a Town Council, churches, and schools, and effectively established an institutional
foundation for trade, missions, and economic development (Rudin, 1938: 18; Enonchong, 1967: 46).
Before Germany founded the Kamerun Protectorate in 1884, the BMS “had enjoyed four decades of
proselytizing free of interference from any state power other than the [the territory’s] multifarious African
kingdoms” (Joseph, 1980: 8). However, extensive Christian proselytizing, for example, among the
Bamiléké of the Western Highlands, the Beti of what is now Cameroon’s Centre Region, and various
groups of the coastal regions, did not lead to “the erosion of traditional authority simply as a consequence
of these conversions to Christianity” (Joseph, 1980: 8).
Missionary activity also introduced languages that helped significantly in promoting communication
among the various groups that were migrating to the emerging settlements of Victoria and Akwa Town
(Douala) and other evolving urban centers. In addition to introducing their languages and making them a
unifying lingua franca for the emerging metropolitan centers whose populations were made up of converts
from various subcultures in the coastal and interior regions of what would become the Kamerun

34
Protectorate, the missionaries also studied indigenous languages and established written forms of these
languages. They then translated the Bible into these languages. For example, by 1847, Jamaican
missionary Joseph Merrick had completed the translation of the Gospel of Matthew into the Isubu
language (Mbu, 1991: 66). A year later, Saker started translating the scriptures into Duala and, by 1872,
Saker had translated the entire Bible into Duala (Delisle and Woodsworth, 2012: 86). Dr. Adolf Vielhauer,
a German missionary working with the Basel Mission, translated the Bible into Mungaka (Vielhauer, 1956
: 122–130; Delisle and Woodsworth, 2012: 86).
The translation of the Bible into local languages and the use of these languages in the missionaries’
“general publications, teaching and evangelical work (even among peoples of differing languages) was to
have far-reaching social and political effects” (Joseph, 1980: 9). The activities of these missionary
translators provided a lot of impetus “to literary work in African languages” and the training of individuals
who were to become leaders in business and government (Delisle and Woodsworth, 2012: 86).
It has been noted that “[t]he missionaries were of undoubted use to the state in promoting the
educational advance of the population and improvements in social welfare, inculcating work discipline and
establishing a moral order suited to the colonial enterprise, and, finally, in fostering an ideological
commitment to the ‘civilizing mission’ of Western colonialism” (Joseph, 1980: 13). Yet, in some issues,
such as the German expropriation of lands belonging to the Duala, many missionaries sided with the
“native peoples” and against the colonial administration.

1.3.3 Germans Introduce Plantation Agriculture

German entrepreneurs introduced capitalism into Kamerun and transformed indigenous cultivators and
gatherers into wage laborers and, in the process, created “uniquely capitalist institutions such as a capitalist
class, wage labor, a labor market, production and exchange and private ownership of land,” which were
important parts of the colonial enterprise (DeLorme, Kamerschen, and Mbaku, 1988: 150). The most
important German entrepreneur in Kamerun was Adolf Woermann “whose firm had the greatest holdings
in the colony” (LeVine, 1964: 24). Woermann also served as a representative of German traders in the
colony and was influential in establishing a constitution that created the legal link between the colony and
the German Reichstag.
On July 3, 1885, Julius von Soden took office as the first governor of Kamerun and proceeded to “set up
a three-man advisory council to assist him, appointed a legal counselor (chancellor), and created the
forerunner of the Mixed Courts (Schiedsgerichte) to supplant the abolished Court of Equity” (LeVine,
1964: 25). In December 1885, Governor von Soden dispatched his financial deputy, Jesko von Puttkamer,
and the explorer Krabbes, to establish German authority over the Bakweri people who occupied the fertile
slopes of Mount Cameroon. The German flag was eventually raised at Buea, which would become the
capital of German Kamerun (1902–1916) (Rudin, 1938: 79).
Convinced by “[t]he excellent climate at Buea and the fertility of the volcanic soil around the
mountain,” the Germans proceeded to establish “extensive plantations in the area” and by 1913, the
German firms of Woermann and Jantzen & Thormälen had built plantations on the lower slopes of Mount
Cameroon (LeVine, 1964: 25). In addition to consolidating German control of the coastal regions of
Kamerun, von Soden’s administration also enhanced and facilitated the ability of German commercial
interests to expand their contacts with various groups in the interior of the Protectorate and helped
establish a botanical garden at Victoria.
Under the administration of Eugen von Zimmerer, who took over from von Soden, efforts to open the
interior to German trade and administrative control began in earnest. One of the earliest efforts to penetrate
the interior was led by explorer Eugen Zintgraff, whose work resulted in the establishment of stations at
Barombi and Bali (in the present South West and North West Regions respectively) (Rudin, 1938: 81).
Von Zimmerer was succeeded by von Puttkamer (1895–1907), whose administration was responsible for
the establishment of large-scale plantations in Kamerun. He contributed significantly to the establishment
of the private trading corporation, Gesellschaft Süd-Kamerun in 1898, specifically to exploit the rich
resources of the southeast region of the protectorate. In July 1899, another private corporation called the
Gesellschaft Nordwest-Kamerun, was created and granted permission to exploit the Bamoun and Bamiléké
regions (LeVine, 1964: 26–27; Rudin, 1938: 93–94).
Von Puttkamer, like many colonialists of his time, believed that his only mission was to exploit the

35
enormous resources of the Kamerun Protectorate for the benefit of his homeland—Germany. He meted out
extremely harsh treatment on the “natives” and ignored complaints against his draconian governing
methods. However, in 1906, Akwa chiefs took their case to the Reichstag and after an investigation, “von
Puttkamer was recalled and tried by the Potsdam Disciplinary Court and after conviction, he was removed
as Governor of Kamerun” (LeVine, 1964: 28). Harry R. Rudin, an expert on the German period in
Cameroon, has noted that although von Puttkamer “prided himself on being a realist in all things” and
“took the very frank view that the purpose of the colonial administration was to further the economic
exploitation of the colony,” he played a critical and prominent role in establishing large-scale plantation
agriculture in the colony (Rudin, 1938: 182). However, he was also known for “his hard policies toward
the blacks, stories of immorality, and his dislike of the principles for which missionaries worked” (Rudin,
1938: 182).
Theodor Seitz, who took over from von Puttkamer on May 9, 1907 and served until August 1910, “held
sincerely to a native policy that was the very opposite of Puttkamer’s; he made the protection of natives
and their rights a fundamental principle of his rule” (Rudin, 1938: 182). It was during the governorship of
Seitz that Neu-Kamerun was added to Kamerun, significantly increasing the latter’s geographic area (
LeVine, 1964: 29). Two more governors served Kamerun before the arrival of Allied Expeditionary Forces
to occupy the territory. Under these successors—Dr. Otto Gleim and Karl Ebermaier—the “interest in
natives and their well-being was maintained but without the zeal manifested by Seitz” (Rudin, 1938: 182).

1.3.4 Germans Leave Behind a Decent Infrastructural Foundation

Germans developed many plantations which produced palm oil, palm kernels, cocoa, rubber, tobacco, and
bananas. For example, in 1894, Governor Zimmerer “reported that plantations were showing greater
progress than trade because of the lack of roads and other hindrances to communication with the interior” (
Rudin, 1938: 249). By January 1, 1913, there were as many as fifty-eight plantations and 195 planters, all
of whom were Europeans. There were 17,827 wage laborers on these plantations, all of them African (
Rudin, 1938: 249). In addition to establishing agricultural plantations, the Germans left behind a
significant amount of economic infrastructure, which was to serve as an important foundation for the
post-independence economy.
The physical plant left by the Germans included “harbor facilities at Douala, Kribi, Campo, and
Tiko-Victoria; the Nordbahn and Mittelbahn rail lines, as well as the Victoria plantation narrow-gauge
railway, a large number of bridges, roads, and paths; and well-constructed government and private
buildings, many of which are still in use today” (LeVine, 1964: 36). In fact, one cannot underestimate the
“value of the many plantations and development projects started during the [German] protectorate” (
LeVine, 1964: 36). The French and the British inherited “a basic infrastructure and a productive
agricultural economy, both with considerable potential” (LeVine, 1964: 36).
The Germans also left behind an “intangible legacy” that has had significant long-lasting and
wide-ranging effects. First, the Germans “initiated the Cameroonian Africans into the novelties of the
exchange economy by drawing them into the cash-wage nexus, and by introducing notions of ownership
foreign to the native societies” (LeVine, 1964: 36), Second, the Germans “inculcated habits of obedience
and deference to authority without which the successors to its regime would have been unable to function”
(LeVine, 1964: 36). Third, and perhaps, more importantly, the German colonial government’s repressive
policies, including especially their decision to forcefully remove the Duala from the city of Douala to make
way for European settlers, “fostered protest movements containing the seeds of future political action” (
LeVine, 1964: 36). In fact, through their activities, the Germans “encouraged the growth of an African
social stratum capable of mediating between the Europeans and the African Cameroonians of the
hinterland; in this the administration consciously used education and Christian missionary activity as
instruments of penetration and modernization” (LeVine, 1964: 36).

36
 1.4 THE ARRIVAL OF THE BRITISH AND THE FRENCH

After the city of Douala was captured by Allied forces on September 14, 1914, a condominium was
established to administer the city jointly until the enemy was fully defeated and peace secured. However,
on March 14, 1916, the condominium was terminated and Kamerun (without Neu-Kamerun, which had
been returned to French Equatorial Africa) was partitioned into French and British zones of influence and
converted into League of Nations Mandates, with France and Britain as the administering powers (Mbaku,
2005: 26–27).
Economic development in the French mandate must be “viewed within the framework of political
developments in the colony” (Mbaku, 2005: 27). The first factor of this framework was the set of
institutional arrangements that were imposed on the colony in order to enhance the ability of France to
govern the territory and to deal with the problems that arose from such rule. The second factor was the
reaction of indigenous groups to French rule. The third and final factor was the influence of German
planters, many of whom had returned after the war to reclaim the plantations that they had abandoned after
being ousted by Allied forces (Mbaku, 2005: 27).
Initially, French policy in colonial Africa was based on assimilation (politique d’assimilation), which
was expected to develop the colonies and metropolitan France “into a single, integrated political and
economic unit” (LeVine, 1964: 89). However, many officials in Paris believed that the cultural gap
between metropolitan France and the inhabitants of the colonies made it virtually impossible to implement
the politique d’assimilation. It was decided that instead of “all-out political assimilation, there would be a
kind of functional collaboration between French [colonial] rulers and the native elite who had accepted
French civilization. Education would gradually raise the social standard of the masses to the point where,
eventually, assimilation might be possible” (LeVine, 1964: 89–90). This alternative policy to assimilation
was called association (politique d’association) (see Betts, 1960; Joseph, 1975).
Cameroonian elites, all of whom had been educated and trained in French language and administrative
procedures and had accepted French culture and civilization, were granted privileged positions in the
“colonial bureaucracy and served as a vital link between the government and the African peoples” and in
many rural areas of French Cameroons, the Gallicized Africans “served as minor colonial officers,
representing French authority in the villages” (Mbaku, 2005: 27). France “applied different policies and
standards to inhabitants of the colonies depending on the degree to which they had ‘evolved’ toward the
French social ideal” (LeVine, 1964: 90).
The population of French Cameroons was divided into “français or européen (covering any white
Frenchman or non-African), assimilé (‘assimilated,’ or as close as an African could come to being
européen), and évolué (‘evolved,’ or Africans educated and considerably Gallicized)” (LeVine, 1964: 90).
These classifications significantly impacted the ability of individuals to participate in the colony’s political
economy. For example, while citoyens were granted “the civil and political rights of persons of French
origin,” sujets (that is, those subject to native customs) were subjected to the forced labor policies of the
régime de l’indigénat (LeVine, 1964: 90–91). The indigénat was a cruel and insidious colonial system in
which the “distribution of various primary social goods (e.g., liberty and opportunity, income and wealth,
and the basis of honor and self-respect) was based on racial, ethnic, religious, and linguistic status” (
Mbaku, 2018: 167–168). Such a legal and administrative system had a significantly negative impact on the
political economy in French Cameroons (Hargreaves, 1967; Mann, 2009; Thompson and Adloff, 1969).
The British neglected the economy of their part of the erstwhile German colony during the mandate
period. In fact, there was little or no activity in the plantations that had been left behind by the Germans.
This was due, inter alia, to the fact that the British treasury was neither willing to finance capital
expenditures in the colony nor facilitate British private capital to do so. After the plantations were sold to
their former German owners, there was a rise in trade in British Cameroons but most of that trade was
directed toward Germany. For example, of a total export bill of 155,432 marks, Britain received only 6,341
marks of that value, while Germany received 109,603 marks’ worth of exports from British Cameroons. In
1937, Germany provided 47.57 percent of British Cameroons’ imports and received 79.75 percent of the
colony’s exports (Mbaku, 2005: 29). During this period, it was German economic activity, particularly in

37
the management of the plantations and the expansion of the infrastructure, that accounted for most of the
economic prosperity enjoyed by citizens of the British Cameroons (Welch, 1966: 155–156).
After the formation of the United Nations in 1945, the mandates eventually became UN Trust Territories
under the administration of France and Britain. However, acceptance of the trusteeship system by both
France and Britain implied that these countries were willing to abide by Article 76 of the UN Charter,
which mandated the promotion of “the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the
inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive development towards self-government or
independence” (UN Charter, Article 76(b)). While this was antithetical to France’s more expansionist
colonial policy, reforms in colonial policy made possible by the French Constitution of 1946; agitations
against colonialism from emerging African elites, including Cameroon’s Ruben Um Nyobé, Félix-Roland
Moumié, and other members of the anti-colonialist organization, Union des Populations du Cameroun
(UPC); and developments at the UN, forced France to grant independence to the UN Trust Territory of
Cameroons under French administration on January 1, 1960 (Joseph, 1977).
Several studies have concluded that despite administrative neglect in “both the colonial and
post-independence eras, rural areas of West Cameroon [now the Anglophone Regions], perform better than
rural areas of East Cameroon [now the Francophone Regions] with essentially similar pre-existing
conditions” (Lee and Schultz, 2012: 42). The studies show that British Southern Cameroons benefited
from indirect rule and the lack of forced labor. However, higher levels of investment in the colonial and
post-colonial periods, centrally provided public goods, including roads, and a larger concentration of urban
areas, has made East Cameroon much richer and more developed than West Cameroon (Lee and Schultz,
2012: 7, 42).

1.5 THE POST-REUNIFICATION ECONOMY

Federation President Ahmadou Ahidjo adopted an economic policy that was based on socialist and
capitalist principles, called planned liberalism. He formally launched this development policy at the
inaugural congress of the ruling Cameroon National Union (CNU) in the city of Baffousam and formally
elaborated the concept in two important publications (Ahidjo, 1967, 1980). Planned liberalism granted the
government the leading role in economic development while at the same time encouraging the creation and
nurturing of a private sector and an entrepreneurial class. Under this approach, “the state was expected to
bring together, through five year development plans, both private and public resources to develop the
country’s economic capacity” (Mbaku, 2004a: 395).
A key part of planned liberalism was the establishment of an investment code that favored foreign
investment and the creation of parastatals, which were expected to undertake projects that the government
believed could not be efficiently undertaken by the private sector. This development approach, however,
created a lot of problems for the economy. First, the investment code offered foreign investors a series of
benefits that placed domestic investors at a competitive disadvantage. These generous benefits included tax
credits; subsidies to secure human capital; preferential access to public contracts; subsidized loans from
public financial institutions; and enhanced access to production inputs from domestic and external sources
(Mbaku, 2013: 164).
Second, most of the businesses established by foreign investors were capital intensive and hence,
employed only a relatively small amount of labor, most of which was foreign. As a consequence, most
local labor did not benefit, at least not directly, from a lot of the investments that came into the country
through planned liberalism. In fact, most foreign businesses failed to create the jobs that the government
had hoped would come with increased foreign direct investment flows, and the general tax benefits granted
to foreign capital “implied that the activities of these foreign entrepreneurs did not contribute significantly
to raising the national taxable base” (Fonge, 2005: 343). Finally, this approach to economic development
significantly enhanced the ability of foreign entrepreneurs, particularly French business interests, to
dominate and control the Cameroon economy, particularly the industrial and manufacturing sectors. This
process significantly stunted the development and sustaining of the indigenous entrepreneurial class that
was expected to form the foundation for sustainable development in the post-independence economy (
Mbaku, 2013: 164).

38
 Parastatals, which were 55 percent owned by the government, served as the instrument through which
the government intervened in the economy. Although he considered state intervention important, Ahidjo
believed in liberalism in the economic domain and this informed his approach to the design of the
investment code, which “regarded private initiative as an important force in economic growth” (Fonge,
2005: 343). A salient objective of the generous packages granted to foreign investors by the investment
code was “to bring badly needed capital resources to the struggling Cameroon economy,” with the hope
that the presence of this foreign capital would pave the way for the development of an indigenous
entrepreneurial class (Fonge, 2005: 343).
After he became President of Cameroon in 1982, Paul Biya maintained Ahidjo’s planned liberalism and
continued to prioritize foreign over domestic investment. As a consequence, Biya’s government failed to
create the robust domestic entrepreneurial class that would have developed industries that were more likely
to employ local labor and contribute to the national tax base. Thus, even after more than sixty years since
reunification, the country’s industrial and mining sectors remain dominated by foreign firms, with the
management of these firms still controlled by foreigners (Fonge, 2005: 343).
Studies of the “triangular relationship between the state, indigenous capitalists, and foreign economic
agents” in the Cameroon economy have revealed the continuing domination of important sectors of the
economy by foreign capital (see, e.g., Ndongko, 1986: 107). In his analysis of the Cameroon economy
from independence to the mid-1980s, Cameroonian economist, Professor Wilfred A. Ndongko, concluded
that despite a national policy to foster the development of a domestic entrepreneurial class, Cameroonian
capitalists “have yet to provide an effective challenge to or even to supplant foreign capital” and that “80
percent or more of industrial value-added [was] in import-substituting activities” (Ndongko, 1986:
107–108).
Import substitution, especially in “food and beverage processing, textiles, garment manufacture, wood
products, paper, and printing along with a sprinkle of capital intensive projects in petroleum refining,
cement, and fertilizers,” constituted an important part of economic growth in Cameroon in the 1970s and
1980s (Ndongko, 1986: 108). However, despite massive state aid, “many of the state enterprises/parastatals
designed to promote the development of the agro-industrial sector suffer from poor management, an
inability to integrate the peasantry into their projects, and a failure to substitute national products for food
imports” (Mbaku, 1988: 367; Willame, 1986).
By the mid-1980s, the country’s agricultural sector was no longer able to feed the growing urban
population. Research revealed that agriculture’s decline was caused less by occasional droughts and more
by the government’s preference for investments in economic sectors that were considered politically more
important, as well as by price-control regimes for agricultural products that constrained production.
Although Cameroon was able to maintain “solid economic growth as well as acceptable growth in the
agricultural sector,” the country’s elaborate development plans were often not implemented and “only 51.2
percent of the planned investment in the agricultural sector was actually made during the Fourth
Development Plan” (DeLancey, 1986: 156).
Since the late-1970s, Cameroon’s economy has benefited significantly from the production and export
of oil. Since 1977, when oil production began in Cameroon, revenues from the export of crude oil have
represented an increasingly significant part of public revenues, rising from “one-fifth to two-thirds of total
merchandise exports in the last five years” (Benjamin and Devarajan, 1986: 165). With significant
endowments of natural resources, Cameroon “has the potential to be one of the richest countries in
sub-Saharan Africa” (Gauthier and Zeufack, 2012: 155).

39
1.5.1 Oil and the Cameroon Economy
Economists have long known that revenues generated from natural resources are likely to induce
“rent-seeking and corruption in those countries that have not developed sufficient quality of governance
before the natural resource discovery” (Gauthier and Zeufack, 2012: 155). Cameroon, with its
dysfunctional governing processes, has suffered significantly from the resource curse. Economists have
argued that “countries blessed with natural resources such as oil and gas can base their development on
these resources, and use them as a key path for sustained economic growth” (Badeeb, Lean, and Clark,
2017: 123). However, research has determined “that resource-rich nations, especially in Africa, Latin
America, and the Middle East tend to grow at a slower rate than countries with fewer natural resources.
These countries are said to suffer from what [has been referred to as] a resource curse” (Badeeb, Lean, and
Clark, 2017: 123).
Cameroon has received significant rents from oil and, according to Gauthier and Zeufack, “a large
proportion [of these rents] was not properly accounted for in the [national] budget” (Gauthier and Zeufack,
2012: 155). World Bank data show that during the period 1977–2006 in Cameroon, “the oil revenue gap
[was] US$5.9 billion” (Gauthier and Zeufack, 2012: 155). However, investigations using production data
from Cameroon’s national oil company—the Société nationale des Hydrocarbures)—determined the gap
to be actually “US$7 billion or 35.2 percent of the estimated total oil revenue that should have accrued to
the government” but which was not accounted for (Gauthier and Zeufack, 2012: 156). The authors
concluded that “lack of transparency and accountability in oil revenue management, including diversion of
revenue away from the state budget, has significantly slowed the pace of development in Cameroon over
the long run” (Gauthier and Zeufack, 2012: 156). Although there have been some improvements in
transparency and accountability in Cameroon’s oil sector during the last several decades, corruption and
rent-seeking remain major problems. Of particular importance is the fact that civil society is still not
empowered to function effectively as a check on the exercise of government power.
Although some scholars have suggested that Cameroon should establish a truly independent energy
regulatory agency, as a well as an audit court and an anticorruption commission, such institutions can only
function effectively within a governing process that is characterized by adherence to the rule of law. Thus,
any efforts to improve the allocation of oil revenues should be made part of comprehensive reforms to
provide the country with a governing process that is characterized by separation of powers with effective
checks and balances, and this must include, at the very least, a truly independent judiciary, a civil society
that is capable of effectively checking on the exercise of government power, a free and independent press,
and constitutionally created and mandated institutions (e.g., the Auditor General and the Public Protector),
which are empowered to guard the country’s democracy (see, e.g., Mbaku, 2020b: 631).
During the period 1972–1979, Cameroon averaged an economic growth rate of 5.7 percent. However,
with the advent of commercial oil production in 1977, the economy was able to achieve a growth rate of
9.4 percent between 1977 and 1986 (Gauthier and Zeufack, 2012: 157). But, a drop in commodity prices,
including oil, “coupled with inadequate policy responses plunged the country into a severe economic
crisis” (Gauthier and Zeufack, 2012: 157) and between 1985 and 1994, the real GDP growth rate was – 2.7
percent (World Bank, 2004: 15).
Cameroon’s economic regression was interrupted by the 50 percent devaluation of the CFA franc in
1994, which appeared to help the slumping economy rebound, and this was due primarily to a huge surge
in timber exports. Unfortunately, that increase produced significant external costs, which included
deforestation and ecosystem degradation. In addition, the surge in exports did not help significantly
improve the country’s real GDP growth, as the rate of 1.3 percent between 1990 and 1999 was much lower
than the 4.5 percent achieved during the period 1980–1989 (World Bank, 2011: 8).

40
1.6 ANGLOPHONE-FRANCOPHONE CONTRADICTIONS AND THE POLITICAL
ECONOMY

In the federation, the former British Southern Cameroons was known as West Cameroon and the
République du Cameroun took the name East Cameroon. West Cameroonians (also called Anglophone
Cameroonians) were afraid that “the proclivity of [federation president] Ahidjo and his colleagues toward
centralized governmental systems would force the union into a unitary state and subsequently jeopardize
the political autonomy of the English-speaking state” (Mbaku, 1997: 86). Several events soon made these
fears prophetic.
First, at reunification, West Cameroon was asked to “surrender its customs receipts and other sources of
revenue to the central government in favor of temporary appropriations from the latter” and that
arrangements would then be made later to secure the financial autonomy of West Cameroon (Mbaku, 1997
: 86). Unfortunately, such an arrangement was never made and West Cameroon became totally dependent
on the federal government for all its finances, a process that effectively destroyed the “political autonomy
that was supposed to be granted the federated state as part of the federalist political system to be
established through reunification” (Mbaku, 1997: 86).
Second, after 1961, West Cameroon continued to use the pound sterling as its currency. However, in
January 1962, authorities in Yaoundé, through a presidential decree, “introduced the CFA franc (the
currency of the République du Cameroun) into West Cameroon without consulting state leaders and
without any considerable effort to properly prepare the people for its arrival” ( Mbaku, 1997: 86). Of
course, West Cameroon officials were quite aware that federation implied the eventual harmonization of
laws and institutions, including the adoption of a common currency. However, they believed that such a
process would be gradual, participatory, inclusive, and with adequate and effective consultation of not just
West Cameroon leaders, but also the state’s citizens.
Third, many West Cameroonians believed that the central government under Ahidjo and Biya had left
them to suffer in extreme poverty. Data show that West Cameroon’s share of the federation GDP in 1960
was 16.5 percent or 19,000 million francs CFA, but by 1970, that percentage had fallen to 12 percent or
27,000 million francs CFA. East Cameroon’s share of the GDP, on the other hand, increased rapidly from
83.5 percent in 1960 to 88 percent in 1970 (Ndongko, 1975: 156–157). As noted by Professor Ndongko,
economic conditions in West Cameroon continued to deteriorate as the federal government used national
development plans to allocate development resources primarily to East Cameroon (Ndongko, 1975:
156–157). By the early-to-mid-1970s, frustrated by their continued poverty, as well as a lack of political
participation, many Anglophones were calling for secession and the formation of an independent and
sovereign West Cameroon.
Finally, due to Southern Cameroons’ extremely weak negotiating position during the constitutional talks
in Foumban in 1961, the République du Cameroun made only nominal changes to its laws and institutions
in order to enter the federation. On the other hand, Southern Cameroons was forced to abandon virtually all
its institutions and adopt those of its partner in the new federal republic (Mbaku, 2014: 26). As explained
by Professor Kofele-Kale, “[i]t was difficult to tell in many instances where [East Cameroon] jurisdiction
left off and where that of the federal government began. The lines were blurred, and this only reinforced
anglophone perception of francophone domination” (Kofele-Kale, 1986: 63). In fact, throughout the
federation (1961–1972), Yaoundé served as both the federal capital and that of East Cameroon and “their
respective institutions were essentially one ‘in origin as well as in function”’ (Kofele-Kale, 1986: 63). This
only reinforced the belief by Anglophone Cameroonians that they were being marginalized and pushed to
the economic and political margins.

41
 1.7 CAMEROON’S ECONOMY TODAY

Cameroon continues to encounter significant levels of economic and political fragility. In addition to the
insecurity and violence that pervades the Anglophone Regions, the East Region, which borders the Central
African Republic (CAR), has been affected by a significant influx of refugees into many villages along
Cameroon’s eastern border. Also, economic conditions in the country’s northern regions, which
historically have exhibited high levels of inequality and poverty, have deteriorated significantly due to low
agricultural productivity, the impact of climate change, poor infrastructure, limited access to critical
services, especially health and education, and perhaps, more importantly, the high levels of insecurity and
violence made possible by the activities of the extremist religious group Boko Haram (World Bank, 2017:
3). Food insecurity, failure of children to attend school, acute malnutrition, homelessness, and deterioration
in the humanitarian situation, are all problems that continue to challenge development in the Anglophone
Regions, as well as the eastern and northern regions of the country.
Due to these high levels of insecurity and violence, young people in various regions across the country,
particularly in the Anglophone Regions, have not been able to attend school to secure the training and
skills that they need to evolve into productive adults and contributing members of their communities.
Hence, the violence is likely to have a significantly negative impact on the country’s long-term economic
prospects. Unfortunately, Cameroon’s dysfunctional and unaccountable institutions have only exacerbated
the problem and have forced young people into untenable situations.
Cameroon achieved middle-income status in the mid-1980s, in large part because of contributions from
its oil sector. In 1987, the World Bank listed Cameroon as a middle-income country with a GNP per capita
of US$970 (1987 dollars) and a GNP per capita growth rate of 3.8 percent (1965–1987) (World Bank,
1989: 164). However, Cameroon was plunged into severe recession during the next few years, as
evidenced by the fact that in 1994, Cameroon had lost its middle-income status and was listed by the
World Bank as a low-income country with a GNP per capita of US$680 and an average annual growth rate
in GNP per capita of –6.9 percent (World Bank, 1996: 188).
However, economic growth in Cameroon improved after the 1994 CFA franc devaluation and
accelerated after the country “reached the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) completion point in
2006” (World Bank, 2017: 4). Large public investments in infrastructure, especially in energy and
transport, and which averaged 7.5 percent of GDP during 2014–2016, contributed to an acceleration of
economic growth in the country (World Bank, 2017: 4).
Table 1.1 provides data on the economies of the Central African Economic and Monetary Union
(CEMAC). Although Cameroon’s performance compares favorably to that of other CEMAC members, it is
important to note that Cameroon’s growth relies less on the production and export of natural resources,
including oil, than the other members of CEMAC. Natural resources rents represented only 5.7 percent of
GDP, compared to an average of 13.35 percent for CEMAC members (Table 1.1).
In an assessment of debt sustainability in Cameroon by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
latter noted that “Cameroon remains at high risk of external and overall public debt distress, but debt
remains sustainable” (IMF, 2020: 1). The IMF noted that Cameroon’s “[p]ublic external debt is projected
to peak in 2020 at 30.6 percent of GDP and to decline gradually thereafter” (IMF, 2020: 10). The IMF
concludes that “[s]teadfast implementation of fiscal and structural reforms is crucial to mitigate risks” and
that “deep structural reforms [are needed in order] to improve competitiveness and achieve economic
diversification,” while “fiscal consolidation, revenue mobilization and a prudent borrowing policy, skewed
towards concessional loans, remain essential to keep public debt dynamics on a sustainable path and
rebuild buffers ahead of upcoming high debt repayments” (IMF, 2020: 12–13).

42
Table 1.1 Development Indicators for CEMAC Countries
Population Total Natural Resources Purchasing Power Parity Gross National Product
(millions) Rents as % of GDP Gross National Income (GNP?)
Country 2019 2016 ($) billions, Per capita capita % Per capita %
2019 ($), 2019 growth, growth, 2019
2019
Cameroon 25.9 5.7 96.5 3,730 3.7 1.1
CAR 4.7 13.0 5.0 1,060 3.0 1.3
Chad 15.9 13.3 25.9 1,620 3.2 0.2
Congo, 5.4 20.2 16.0 2,980 3.5 6.0
Rep. of
E. Guinea 1.4 16.1 19.9 14,640 5.6 8.8
Gabon 2.2 11.8 31.2 14,350 3.9 1.4
Note: CAR = Central African Republic; E. Guinea = Equatorial Guinea, and Congo, Rep. of = Republic of Congo,
also known as Congo (Brazzaville).
Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators 2019, Washington, DC: World Bank.

During the period 2014–2016, lower oil prices reduced revenues accruing to the government by about “2
percent of GDP” and this was only “partly offset by a reduction in fuel subsidies” (World Bank, 2017: 4).
The country’s public-debt-to-GDP ratio, “which had declined from 52 percent before the completion of the
HIPC process to 10 percent in 2008, rose to 28 percent of GDP at the end of 2015” and was projected to
rise to “36 percent of GDP by 2020” (World Bank, 2017: 4). Thus, “[c]ombined with lower oil exports,
higher debt levels have led to a deterioration of the present value of debt to exports ratio” in Cameroon (
World Bank, 2017: 4).
Various assessments show that Cameroon’s economy remains unattractive to investments in the private
sector. In addition to the fact that the economy is not competitive, it lacks diversification. The World Bank
notes that, despite the fact that Cameroon has an “abundance of natural assets, and tremendous climatic
and land potential, the primary sector’s contribution to growth is very limited, about one percentage point
of GDP p.a., and is dominated by food crops grown by smallholder farmers” (World Bank, 2017: 5).
Cameroon’s competitiveness index—which is defined as the “set of institutions, policies and factors that
determine the level of productivity”—deteriorated from 121st/140 in 2018 to 123rd/141 in 2019 (Schwab
and WEF, 2019: 134–137).
In terms of the ease of doing business—starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting
access to electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes,
trading across borders, enforcing contracts, and resolving insolvency—Cameroon ranked 167 out of 190,
with New Zealand, Singapore, and Hong Kong (SAR, China) emerging as the most business-friendly
economies in the world, with ranks of 1, 2, and 3 respectively (World Bank, 2020).

1.8 CONCLUSION

Cameroon’s economy has been influenced, over the years, by various groups and institutions. First is
European colonialism—German, British, and French—which brought various ethnolinguistic groups
together to form what is now Cameroon and introduced the people to capitalism and its associated
institutions (e.g., private ownership of the means of production). Second is Christianity and Christian
missions, which significantly affected the people’s worldview, forced a restructuring of family relations,
and paved the way for more intergroup interaction and cooperation. By increasing inter-ethnic interaction,
Christianity also created more avenues for trade and exchange between the various subcultures within
Cameroon. In addition, Christian missions introduced schools and apprenticeship centers, where young
people could acquire skills that enhanced their ability to function as productive adults. Of course,
education significantly improved the economic mobility of many Cameroonians, allowing them to freely
migrate to where they could earn their opportunity cost, a process that contributed significantly to the
development of an exchange economy.

43
 While the introduction of European languages (e.g., German, English, and French) did have a negative
impact on the further development of several indigenous languages, it, nevertheless, provided a lingua
franca, which significantly enhanced communication across cultures and across ethnic boundaries, and
helped in the development of urban centers, large agricultural plantations, and an exchange economy.
Missionaries also studied indigenous languages (e.g., Mungaka and Duala), established written forms for
them, and translated the Bible into these languages. For example, Alfred Saker, the Baptist missionary who
founded the metropolitan center of Victoria (now called Limbe), translated the Bible into Duala. In
addition, the activities of the various missionary translators paved the way for the creation of knowledge
(e.g., poetry, short stories, and essays) in indigenous languages. While producing an important crop of
indigenous knowledge creators, the work of missionaries also created, in many Cameroonian intellectuals,
a moral idealism that would undergird their opposition to colonialism and the struggle for independence
and the recognition and protection of human rights.
Third, migrants from neighboring countries have significantly enriched the country’s cultural mix and
have also made important contributions to the development of the country’s economy. For example, in
urban areas such as Kumba and Bamenda, one can find Cameroonians of Nigerian heritage performing
important functions in trade, commerce, and the construction of rental real properties. A study of Kumba
showed that Igbos, whose ancestors migrated from southeastern Nigeria into Cameroon before and during
the colonial period, are important entrepreneurs in “the market trade in local foodstuffs and imported
goods as well as the transport industry and the retail and wholesale distribution of palm oil” and many of
them have also entered “the restaurant business, photography, baking, shoe repairing, and a wide variety of
other small enterprises” (Kleis, 1980: 91).
Fourth, large internal migrations, many of them occasioned by population pressures and the search for
opportunities for self-actualization and economic advancement, have also contributed to the growth of
urban economies in Cameroon. During the German period, a significant number of the people who worked
as laborers in rubber and palm plantations throughout the southern regions of Kamerun were immigrants
from the interior of the country.
Finally, in addition to Christianity, Islam and Cameroon’s various traditional religions have also been
responsible for inculcating in the people values, such as probity and morality, which have been critical to
the development of economic and financial institutions. For example, many of the country’s various
traditional religions “require their members to be devout, honest, faithful and spiritual,” values that augur
well for the development of a fully functioning and sustainable economy.
In 2020, the economy was affected significantly by the combined impacts of three important stimuli: the
COVID-19 pandemic; the persistence of security and political crises, notably in the Anglophone Regions,
and the East and Far North Regions; and the decline in world oil prices. From a health and economic
perspective, “Cameroon was the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020” among the CEMAC
countries (AfDB, 2021: 107). In 2020, Cameroon’s real GDP contracted by 2.4 percent, compared to an
average annual growth of 3.7 percent in 2019. There was a 6.1 percentage point decline in economic
activity in Cameroon, which the African Development Bank noted was due primarily to the decline in
global prices for oil.
Economic growth in Cameroon has also been negatively affected by the deteriorating security situation
in various parts of the country. The closure of the border between Nigeria and the Anglophone Regions,
for example, brought to a halt the significant amount of trade that had been taking place between Nigeria
and major Anglophone metropolitan areas such as Limbe, Buea, Kumba, and Bamenda. In addition, the
burning of many Anglophone villages by government security forces destroyed important agricultural land
and significantly impeded farming and the production of foodstuffs, as well as cash crops, such as cocoa,
coffee, and palm oil and palm kernel.
The availability of a vaccine against COVID-19 at the beginning of 2021 is expected to eventually and
gradually extinguish the virus and improve global economic conditions ( World Bank, 2021).
Improvements in health conditions in Cameroon, including especially a general decline in COVID-19
infection rates, should create the opportunity for economic recovery in the country. However, for such a
recovery to occur, Cameroon must deal fully and effectively with its security issues, including in particular
he conflict in the Anglophone Regions. Perhaps, most importantly, Cameroon must undertake necessary
institutional reforms to provide itself with a governing process that is undergirded by the true separation of

44
 powers with checks and balances. Such checks include a truly independent judiciary; a robust and
politically active civil society, one that is capable of effectively guarding the government in order to force
it to be accountable to both the constitution and the people; civil society institutions (e.g., a free and
independent press) that can check on the exercise of government power and provide citizens with the
information that they need to remain politically active; and a virtuous public and virtuous leaders.

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 27 Robison, vol. iv. p. 18.

28 Mém. Ac. P. 1788, p. 671.

The mathematical results of the supposition of Æpinus, which are,

as Coulomb observes, 29 the same as of that of the two fluids, were
traced by the author himself in the work referred to, and shown to
agree, in a great number of cases, with the observed facts of
electrical induction, attraction, and repulsion. Apparently this work
did not make its way very rapidly through Europe; for in 1771, Henry
Cavendish stated 30 the same hypothesis in a paper read before the
Royal Society; which he prefaces by saying, “Since I first wrote the
following paper, I find that this way of accounting for the phenomena
of electricity is not new. Æpinus, in his Tentamen Theoriæ
Electricitatis et Magnetismi, has made use of the same, or nearly the
same hypothesis that I have; and the conclusions he draws from it
agree nearly with mine as far as he goes.”
29 Ac. P. 1788, p. 672.

30 Phil. Trans. 1771, vol. lxi.

The confirmation of the theory was, of course, to be found in the

agreement of its results with experiment; and in particular, in the
facts of electrical induction, attraction, and repulsion, which
suggested the theory. Æpinus showed that such a confirmation
appeared in a number of the most obvious cases; and to these,
Cavendish added others, which, though not obvious, were of such a
nature that the calculations, in general difficult or impossible, could in
these instances be easily performed; as, for example, cases in which
there are plates or globes at the two extremities of a long wire. In all
these cases of 205 electrical action the theory was justified. But in
order to give it full confirmation, it was to be considered whether any
other facts, not immediately assumed in the foundation of the theory,
were explained by it; a circumstance which, as we have seen, gave
the final stamp of truth to the theories of astronomy and optics. Now
we appear to have such confirmation, in the effect of points, and in
the phenomena of the electrical discharge. The theory of neither of
these was fully understood by Cavendish, but he made an approach
to the true view of them. If one part of a conducting body be a sphere
of small radius, the electric fluid upon the surface of this sphere will,
it appears by calculation, be more dense, and tend to escape more
energetically, in proportion as the radius of the sphere is smaller;
and, therefore, if we consider a point as part of the surface of a
sphere of imperceptible radius, it follows from the theory that the
effort of the fluid to escape at that place will be enormous; so that it
may easily be supposed to overcome the resisting causes. And the
discharge may be explained in nearly the same manner; for when a
conductor is brought nearer and nearer to an electrized body, the
opposite electricity is more and more accumulated by attraction on
the side next to the electrized body; its tension becomes greater by
the increase of its quantity and the diminution of the distance, and at
last it is too strong to be contained, and leaps out in the form of a
spark.

The light, sound, and mechanical effects produced by the electric

discharge, made the electric fluid to be not merely considered as a
mathematical hypothesis, useful for reducing phenomena to formulæ
(as for a long time the magnetic fluid was), but caused it to be at
once and universally accepted as a physical reality, of which we
learn the existence by the common use of the senses, and of which
measures and calculations are only wanted to teach us the laws.
 The applications of the theory of electricity which I have principally
considered above, are those which belong to conductors, in which
the electric fluid is perfectly moveable, and can take that distribution
which the forces require. In non-conducting or electric bodies, the
conditions to which the fluid is subject are less easy to determine;
but by supposing that the fluid moves with great difficulty among the
particles of such bodies,—that nevertheless it may be dislodged and
accumulated in parts of the surface of such bodies, by friction and
other modes of excitement; and that the earth is an inexhaustible
reservoir of electric matter,—the principal facts of excitation and the
like receive a tolerably satisfactory explanation. 206

The theory of Æpinus, however, still required to have the law of

action of the particles of the fluid determined. If we were to call to
mind how momentous an event in physical astronomy was the
determination of the law of the cosmical forces, the inverse square of
the distance, and were to suppose the importance and difficulty of
the analogous step in this case to be of the same kind, this would be
to mistake the condition of science at that time. The leading idea, the
conception of the possibility of explaining natural phenomena by
means of the action of forces, on rigorously mechanical principles,
had already been promulgated by Newton, and was, from the first,
seen to be peculiarly applicable to electrical phenomena; so that the
very material step of clearly proposing the problem, often more
important than the solution of it, had already been made. Moreover
the confirmation of the truth of the assumed cause in the
astronomical case depended on taking the right law; but the
electrical theory could be confirmed, in a general manner at least,
without this restriction. Still it was an important discovery that the law
of the inverse square prevailed in these as well as in cosmical
attractions.
 It was impossible not to conjecture beforehand that it would be so.
Cavendish had professed in his calculations not to take the exponent
of the inverse power, on which the force depended, to be strictly 2,
but to leave it indeterminate between 1 and 3; but in his applications
of his results, he obviously inclines to the assumption that it is 2.
Experimenters tried to establish this in various ways. Robison, 31 in
1769, had already proved that the law of force is very nearly or
exactly the inverse square; and Meyer 32 had discovered, but not
published, the same result. The clear and satisfactory establishment
of this truth is due to Coulomb, and was one of the first steps in his
important series of researches on this subject. In his first paper 33 in
the Memoirs of the Academy for 1785, he proves this law for small
globes; in his second Memoir he shows it to be true for globes one
and two feet in diameter. His invention of the torsion-balance, which
measures very small forces with great certainty and exactness,
enabled him to set this question at rest for ever.
31 Works, iv. p. 68.

32 Biog. Univ. art. Coulumb, by Biot.

33 Mém. A. P. 1785, pp. 569, 578.

The law of force being determined for the particles of the electric
fluid, it now came to be the business of the experimenter and the 207
mathematician to compare the results of the theory in detail with
those of experimental measures. Coulomb undertook both portions
of the task. He examined the electricity of portions of bodies by
means of a little disk (his tangent plane) which he applied to them
and then removed, and which thus acted as a sort of electric taster.
His numerical results (the intensity being still measured by the
torsion-balance) are the fundamental facts of the theory of the
electrical fluid. Without entering into detail, we may observe that he
found the electricity to be entirely collected at the surface of
conductors (which Beccaria had before shown to be the case), and
that he examined and recorded the electric intensity at the surface of
globes, cylinders, and other conducting bodies, placed within each
other’s influence in various ways.

The mathematical calculation of the distribution of two fluids, all

the particles of which attract and repel each other according to the
above law, was a problem of no ordinary difficulty; as may easily be
imagined, when it is recollected that the attraction and repulsion
determine the distribution, and the distribution reciprocally
determines the attraction and repulsion. The problem was of the
same nature as that of the figure of the earth; and its rigorous
solution was beyond the powers of the analysis of Coulomb’s time.
He obtained, however, approximate solutions with much ingenuity;
for instance, in a case in which it was obvious that the electric fluid
would be most accumulated at and near the equator of a certain
sphere, he calculated the action of the sphere on two suppositions:
first, that the fluid was all collected precisely at the equator; and next,
that it was uniformly diffused over the surface; and he then assumed
the actual case to be intermediate between these two. By such
artifices he was able to show that the results of his experiments and
of his calculations gave an agreement sufficiently near to entitle him
to consider the theory as established on a solid basis.

Thus, at this period, mathematics was behind experiment; and a

problem was proposed, in which theoretical numerical results were
wanted for comparison with observation, but could not be accurately
obtained; as was the case in astronomy also, till the time of the
approximate solution of the Problem of Three Bodies, and the
consequent formation of the Tables of the Moon and Planets on the
theory of universal gravitation. After some time, electrical theory was
relieved from this reproach, mainly in consequence of the progress
which astronomy had occasioned in pure mathematics. About 1801,
208 there appeared in the Bulletin des Sciences, 34 an exact solution
of the problem of the distribution of electric fluid on a spheroid,
obtained by M. Biot, by the application of the peculiar methods which
Laplace had invented for the problem of the figure of the planets.
And in 1811, M. Poisson applied Laplace’s artifices to the case of
two spheres acting upon one another in contact, a case to which
many of Coulomb’s experiments were referrible; and the agreement
of the results of theory and observation, thus extricated from
Coulomb’s numbers, obtained above forty years previously, was very
striking and convincing. 35 It followed also from Poisson’s
calculations, that when two electrized spheres are brought near each
other, the accumulation of the opposite electricities on their nearest
points increases without limit as the spheres approach to contact; so
that before the contact takes place, the external resistance will be
overcome, and a spark will pass.
34 No. li.

35 Mém. A. P. 1811.

Though the relations of non-conductors to electricity, and various

other circumstances, leave many facts imperfectly explained by the
theory, yet we may venture to say that, as a theory which gives the
laws of the phenomena, and which determines the distribution of
those elementary forces, on the surface of electrized bodies, from
which elementary forces (whether arising from the presence of a
fluid or not,) the total effects result, the doctrine of Dufay and
Coulomb, as developed in the analysis of Poisson, is securely and
permanently established. This part of the subject has been called
statical electricity. In the establishment of the theory of this branch of
science, we must, I conceive, allow to Dufay more merit than is
generally ascribed to him; since he saw clearly, and enunciated in a
manner which showed that he duly appreciated their capital
character, the two chief principles,—the conditions of electrical
attraction and repulsion, and the apparent existence of two kinds of
electricity. His views of attraction are, indeed, partly expressed in
terms of the Cartesian hypothesis of vortices, then prevalent in
France; but, at the time when he wrote, these forms of speech
indicated scarcely anything besides the power of attraction.
Franklin’s real merit as a discoverer was, that he was one of the first
who distinctly conceived the electrical charge as a derangement of
equilibrium. The great fame which, in his day, he enjoyed, arose from
the clearness and spirit with which he narrated his discoveries; from
his dealing with electricity in the imposing form of thunder and
lightning; and partly, perhaps, from his character as an 209 American
and a politician; for he was already, in 1736, engaged in public affairs
as clerk to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, though it was not
till a later period of his life that his admirers had the occasion of
saying of him

Eripuit cœlis fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis;

Born to control all lawless force, all fierce and baleful sway,
The thunder’s bolt, the tyrant’s rod, alike he wrenched away.

Æpinus and Coulomb were two of the most eminent physical

philosophers of the last century, and labored in the way peculiarly
required by that generation; whose office it was to examine the
results, in particular subjects, of the general conception of attraction
and repulsion, as introduced by Newton. The reasonings of the
Newtonian period had, in some measure, anticipated all possible
theories resembling the electrical doctrine of Æpinus and Coulomb;
and, on that account, this doctrine could not be introduced and
confirmed in a sudden and striking manner, so as to make a great
epoch. Accordingly, Dufay, Symmer, Watson, Franklin, Æpinus and
Coulomb, have all a share in the process of induction. With
reference to these founders of the theory of electricity, Poisson holds
the same place which Laplace holds with reference to Newton.

The reception of the Coulombian theory (so we most call it, for the
Æpinian theory implies one fluid only,) has hitherto not been so
general as might have been reasonably expected from its very
beautiful accordance with the facts which it contemplates. This has
partly been owing to the extreme abstruseness of the mathematical
reasoning which it employs, and which put it out of the reach of most
experimenters and writers of works of general circulation. The theory
of Æpinus was explained by Robison in the Encyclopædia
Britannica; the analysis of Poisson has recently been presented to
the public in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana, but is of a kind not
easily mastered even by most mathematicians. On these accounts
probably it is, that in English compilations of science, we find, even
to this day, the two theories of one and of two fluids stated as if they
were nearly on a par in respect of their experimental evidence. Still
we may say that the Coulombian theory is probably assented to by
all who have examined it, at least as giving the laws of phenomena;
and I have not heard of any denial of it from such a quarter, or of any
attempt to show it to be erroneous by detailed and measured
experiments. Mr. Snow Harris 210 has recently 36 described some
important experiments and measures; but his apparatus was of such
a kind that the comparison of the results with the Coulombian theory
was not easy; and indeed the mathematical problems which Mr.
Harris’s combinations offered, require another Poisson for their
solution. Still the more obvious results are such as agree with the
theory, even in the cases in which their author considered them to be
inexplicable. For example, he found that by doubling the quantity of
electricity of a conductor, it attracted a body with four times the force;
but the body not being insulated, would have its electricity also
doubled by induction, and thus the fact was what the theory required.
36 Phil. Trans. 1834, p. 2.

Though it is thus highly probable that the Coulombian theory of

electricity (or the Æpinian, which is mathematically equivalent) will
stand as a true representation of the law of the elementary actions,
we must yet allow that it has not received that complete evidence, by
means of experiments and calculations added to those of its
founders, which the precedents of other permanent sciences have
led us to look for. The experiments of Coulomb, which he used in the
establishment of the theory, were not very numerous, and they were
limited to a peculiar form of bodies, namely spheres. In order to form
the proper sequel to the promulgation of this theory, to give a full
confirmation, and to ensure its general reception, we ought to have
experiments more numerous and more varied (such as those of Mr.
Harris are) shown to agree in all respects with results calculated
from the theory. This would, as we have said, be a task of labor and
difficulty; but the person who shall execute it will deserve to be
considered as one of the real founders of the true doctrine of
electricity. To show that the coincidence between theory and
observation, which has already been proved for spherical
conductors, obtains also for bodies of other forms, will be a step in
electricity analogous to what was done in astronomy, when it was
shown that the law of gravitation applied to comets as well as to
planets.

But although we consider the views of Æpinus or Coulomb in a

very high degree probable as a formal theory, the question is very
different when we come to examine them as a physical theory;—that
is, when we inquire whether there really is a material electric fluid or
fluids.

Question of One or Two Fluids.—In the first place as to the

question whether the fluids are one or two;—Coulomb’s introduction
of 211 the hypothesis of two fluids has been spoken of as a reform of
the theory of Æpinus; it would probably have been more safe to have
called his labors an advance in the calculation, and in the
comparison of hypothesis with experiment, than to have used
language which implied that the question, between the rival
hypotheses of one or two fluids, could be treated as settled. For, in
reality, if we assume, as Æpinus does, the mutual repulsion of all the
particles of matter, in addition to the repulsion of the particles of the
electric fluid for one another and their attraction for the particles of
matter, the one fluid of Æpinus will give exactly the same results as
the two fluids of Coulomb. The mathematical formulæ of Coulomb
and of Poisson express the conditions of the one case as well as of
the other; the interpretation only being somewhat different. The place
of the forces of the resinous fluid is supplied by the excess of the
forces ascribed to the matter above the forces of the fluid, in the
parts where the electric fluid is deficient.

The obvious argument against this hypothesis is, that we ascribe

to the particles of matter a mutual repulsion, in addition to the mutual
attraction of universal gravitation, and that this appears incongruous.
Accordingly, Æpinus says, that when he was first driven to this
proposition it horrified him. 37 But we may answer it in this way very
satisfactorily:—If we suppose the mutual repulsion of matter to be
somewhat less than the mutual attraction of matter and electric fluid,
it will follow, as a consequence of the hypothesis, that besides all
obvious electrical action, the particles of matter would attract each
other with forces varying inversely as the square of the distance.
Thus gravitation itself becomes an electrical phenomenon, arising
from the residual excess of attraction over repulsion; and the fact
which is urged against the hypothesis becomes a confirmation of it.
By this consideration the prerogative of simplicity passes over to the
side of the hypothesis of one fluid; and the rival view appears to lose
at least all its superiority.
37 Neque diffiteor cum ipsa se mihi offerret . . . . me ad ipsam
quodammodo exhorruisse. Tentamen Theor. Elect. p. 39.

Very recently, M. Mosotti 38 has calculated the results of the

Æpinian theory in a far more complete manner than had previously
been performed; using Laplace’s coefficients, as Poisson had done
for the 212 Coulombian theory. He finds that, from the supposition of
a fluid and of particles of matter exercising such forces as that theory
assumes (with the very allowable additional supposition that the
particles are small compared with their distances), it follows that the
particles would exert a force, repulsive at the smallest distances, a
little further on vanishing, afterwards attractive, and at all sensible
distances attracting in proportion to the inverse square of the
distance. Thus there would be a position of stable equilibrium for the
particles at a very small distance from each other, which may be, M.
Mosotti suggests, that equilibrium on which their physical structure
depends. According to this view, the resistance of bodies to
compression and to extension, as well as the phenomena of statical
electricity and the mutual gravitation of matter, are accounted for by
the same hypothesis of a single fluid or ether. A theory which offers a
prospect of such a generalization is worth attention; but a very clear
and comprehensive view of the doctrines of several sciences is
requisite to prepare us to estimate its value and probable success.
38 Sur les Forces qui régissent la Constitution Intérieure des
Corps. Turin. 1836.

Question of the Material Reality of the Electric Fluid.—At first sight

the beautiful accordance of the experiments with calculations
founded upon the attractions and repulsions of the two hypothetical
fluids, persuade us that the hypotheses must be the real state of
things. But we have already learned that we must not trust to such
evidence too readily. It is a curious instance of the mutual influence
of the histories of two provinces of science, but I think it will be
allowed to be just, to say that the discovery of the polarization of
heat has done much to shake the theory of the electric fluids as a
physical reality. For the doctrine of a material caloric appeared to be
proved (from the laws of conduction and radiation) by the same kind
of mathematical evidence (the agreement of laws respecting the
elementary actions with those of fluids), which we have for the
doctrine of material electricity. Yet we now seem to see that heat
cannot be matter, since its rays have sides, in a manner in which a
stream of particles of matter cannot have sides without inadmissible
hypotheses. We see, then, that it will not be contrary to precedent, if
our electrical theory, representing with perfect accuracy the laws of
the actions, in all their forms, simple and complex, should yet be
fallacious as a view of the cause of the actions.
 Any true view of electricity must include, or at least be consistent
with, the other classes of the phenomena, as well as this statical
electrical action; such as the conditions of excitation and retention of
213 electricity; to which we may add, the connexion of electricity with
magnetism and with chemistry;—a vast field, as yet dimly seen.
Now, even with regard to the simplest of these questions, the cause
of the retention of electricity at the surface of bodies, it appears to be
impossible to maintain Coulomb’s opinion, that this is effected by the
resistance of air to the passage of electricity. The other questions are
such as Coulomb did not attempt to touch; they refer, indeed,
principally to laws not suspected at his time. How wide and profound
a theory must be which deals worthily with these, we shall obtain
some indications in the succeeding part of our history.

But it may be said on the other side, that we have the evidence of
our senses for the reality of an electric fluid;—we see it in the spark;
we hear it in the explosion; we feel it in the shock; and it produces
the effects of mechanical violence, piercing and tearing the bodies
through which it passes. And those who are disposed to assert a real
fluid on such grounds, may appear to be justified in doing so, by one
of Newton’s “Rules of Philosophizing,” in which he directs the
philosopher to assume, in his theories, “causes which are true.” The
usual interpretation of a “vera causa,” has been, that it implies
causes which, independently of theoretical calculations, are known
to exist by their mechanical effects; as gravity was familiarly known
to exist on the earth, before it was extended to the heavens. The
electric fluid might seem to be such a vera causa.

To this I should venture to reply, that this reasoning shows how

delusive the Newtonian rule, so interpreted, may be. For a moment’s
consideration will satisfy us that none of the circumstances, above
adduced, can really prove material currents, rather than vibrations,
or other modes of agency. The spark and shock are quite insufficient
to supply such a proof. Sound is vibrations,—light is vibrations;
vibrations may affect our nerves, and may rend a body, as when
glasses are broken by sounds. Therefore all these supposed
indications of the reality of the electric fluid are utterly fallacious. In
truth, this mode of applying Newton’s rule consists in elevating our
first rude and unscientific impressions into a supremacy over the
results of calculation, generalization, and systematic induction. 39
39 On the subject of this Newtonian Rule of Philosophizing, see
further Phil. Ind. Sc. B. xii. c. 13. I have given an account of the
history and evidence of the Theory of Electricity in the Reports of
the British Association for 1835. I may seem there to have spoken
more favorably of the Theory as a Physical Theory than I have
done here. This difference is principally due to a consideration of
the present aspect of the Theory of Heat.

214 Thus our conclusion with regard to this subject is, that if we
wish to form a stable physical theory of electricity, we must take into
account not only the laws of statical electricity, which we have been
chiefly considering, but the laws of other kinds of agency, different
from the electric, yet connected with it. For the electricity of which we
have hitherto spoken, and which is commonly excited by friction, is
identical with galvanic action, which is a result of chemical
combinations, and belongs to chemical philosophy. The connexion of
these different kinds of electricity with one another leads us into a
new domain; but we must, in the first place, consider their
mechanical laws. We now proceed to another branch of the same
subject, Magnetism.

~Additional material in the 3rd edition.~

 B O O K XII.

MECHANICO-CHEMICAL SCIENCES.
(CONTINUED.)
HISTORY OF MAGNETISM.
Effice, ut interea fera munera militiaï
Per maria ac terras omneis sopita quiescant.
Nam tu sola potes tranquilla pace juvare
Mortales; quoniam belli fera munera Mavors
Armipotens regit, in gremium qui sæpe tuum se
Rejicit, æterno devictus vulnere amoris;
Atque ita suspiciens tereti cervice reposta,
Pascit amore avidos inhians in te, Dea, visus,
Eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore.
Hunc tu, Diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto
Circumfusa super, suaves ex ore loquelas
Funde, petens placidam Romanis, incluta, pacem.
Lucret. i. 31.

O charming Goddess, whose mysterious sway

The unseen hosts of earth and sky obey;
To whom, though cold and hard to all besides,
The Iron God by strong affection glides.
Flings himself eager to thy close embrace,
And bends his head to gaze upon thy face;
Do thou, what time thy fondling arms are thrown
Around his form, and he is all thy own,
Do thou, thy Rome to save, thy power to prove,
Beg him to grant a boon for thy dear love;
Beg him no more in battle-fields to deal.
Or crush the nations with his mailed heel.
But, touched and softened by a worthy flame,
Quit sword and spear, and seek a better fame.
Bid him to make all war and slaughter cease,
And ply his genuine task in arts of peace;
And by thee guided o’er the trackless surge,
Bear wealth and joy to ocean’s farthest verge.
 CHAPTER I.

Discovery of Laws of Magnetic Phenomena.

T HE history of Magnetism is in a great degree similar to that of

Electricity, and many of the same persons were employed in the
two trains of research. The general fact, that the magnet attracts
iron, was nearly all that was known to the ancients, and is frequently
mentioned and referred to; for instance, by Pliny, who wonders and
declaims concerning it, in his usual exaggerated style. 1 The writers
of the Stationary Period, in this subject as in others, employed
themselves in collecting and adorning a number of extravagant tales,
which the slightest reference to experiment would have disproved;
as, for example, that a magnet, when it has lost its virtue, has it
restored by goat’s blood. Gilbert, whose work De Magnete we have
already mentioned, speaks with becoming indignation and pity of this
bookish folly, and repeatedly asserts the paramount value of
experiments. He himself, no doubt, acted up to his own precepts; for
his work contains all the fundamental facts of the science, so fully
examined indeed, that even at this day we have little to add to them.
Thus, in his first Book, the subjects of the third, fourth, and fifth
Chapters are,—that the magnet has poles,—that we may call these
poles the north and the south pole,—that in two magnets the north
pole of each attracts the south pole and repels the north pole of the
other. This is, indeed, the cardinal fact on which our generalizations
rest; and the reader will perceive at once its resemblance to the
leading phenomena of statical electricity.
1 Hist. Nat. lib. xxxvi. c. 25.
 But the doctrines of magnetism, like those of heat, have an
additional claim on our notice from the manner in which they are
exemplified in the globe of the earth. The subject of terrestrial
magnetism forms a very important addition to the general facts of
magnetic attraction and repulsion. The property of the magnet by
which it directs its poles exactly or nearly north and south, when
once discovered, was of immense importance to the mariner. It does
not 218 appear easy to trace with certainty the period of this
discovery. Passing over certain legends of the Chinese, as at any
rate not bearing upon the progress of European science, 2 the
earliest notice of this property appears to be contained in the Poem
of Guyot de Provence, who describes the needle as being
magnetized, and then placed in or on a straw, (floating on water, as I
presume:)

Puis se torne la pointe toute

Contre l’estoile sans doute;

that is, it turns towards the pole-star. This account would make the
knowledge of this property in Europe anterior to 1200. It was
afterwards found 3 that the needle does not point exactly towards the
north. Gilbert was aware of this deviation, which he calls the
variation, and also, that it is different in different places. 4 He
maintained on theoretical principles also, 5 that at the same place the
variation is constant; probably in his time there were not any
recorded observations by which the truth of this assertion could be
tested; it was afterwards found to be false. The alteration of the
variation in proceeding from one place to another was, it will be
recollected, one of the circumstances which most alarmed the
companions of Columbus in 1492. Gilbert says, 6 “Other learned men
have, in long navigations, observed the differences of magnetic