Is the Private Sector All it is Cracked Up to Be? Myths, Reality, and Developmental Lessons for Africa

Abstract

Over the years, neoclassical dogma has fostered the impression that the private sector, driven as it were by the imperative of self-interest and the calculus of the profit-motive, has an in-built tendency to realize superior economic performance and generate faster growth. Unlike the public sector that is epitomized as generally wallowing in rentseeking behavior and clientilism and therefore inherently mired in the morass of gross inefficiency, the private sector has been popularized as a model that is almost sacrosanct in its essence and virtually infallible in its operational vivacity