TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS, TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH IN AFRICA: THE CASE OF ZIMBABWE

While a commendable effort has been made in establishing world economic growth determinants, the war to establish the causes of a slow economic growth in Africa still rages on. This paper offers an alternative explanation to the causes of a slow economic growth in Zimbabwe. The findings demonstrate that the augmented Solow model of economic growth can equally explain the determinants of economic growth in Zimbabwe. However, we find evidence that the slow economic growth in Zimbabwe is a result of the slow rate of technology adoption by economic agents due to captivity in ancestral beliefs. The study establishes that the captivity or attachment of Africans to traditional beliefs makes the production systems in African countries inelastic to global technological progress hence leading to slow growth. The largest contributor of economic growth in Zimbabwe is the inherited technology or the historical factors of production.