Las pequeñas economías insulares africanas, 1950-2010. Una perspectiva comparada

Island economies have some common specific features, such as fragmentation of the internal market due to their archipelagic nature, or their remoteness from foreign markets. This affects the export of their products as well as what they consume and cannot, or it is not profitable, produce locally. They also tend to suffer from a strong atomization of their companies. These and other circumstances have conditioned and determine the evolution of the main macroeconomic indicators. This paper is a comparative study of the socioeconomic situation found in some African island regions —Cape Verde, Comores Islands, Canary Islands, Mauritius, Reunion, Sao Tome and Principe, and Seychelles. It makes a long-term analysis (1950-2010) in order to provide a broad enough perspective to understand how each of them has faced these challenges and the different results obtained. KEY Classification-JEL: F01. N17. O11. O57