Research on economic growth, poverty, inequality, and governance in Africa
Title
Professor, Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER)
Augustin Kwasi Fosu is a Ghanaian development economist known for his research on economic growth, poverty, inequality, governance, and development policy, particularly within the African context. He is a professor at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) at the University of Ghana. As of 2025, Fosu's publications have been cited over 14,000 times on Google Scholar, where he holds an h-index exceeding 60.[1][2]
Fosu began his academic career in the United States, teaching at Kalamazoo College and later at Oakland University, where he rose from assistant professor to associate professor in 1986 and to full professor in 1993, and served as department chair. He also held a visiting associate professorship at the University of Rochester (1992–1993).[4]
Since 2013, Fosu has been a professor at ISSER, University of Ghana, teaching primarily PhD-level courses at ISSER and the Department of Economics. He has also held honorary and visiting academic appointments at Aalto University in Finland, as Distinguished Visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg, and as Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria in South Africa.[7] From 2009 to 2016, he was a research associate at the Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester, and since 2011 he has been affiliated as research associate with the Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.[8]
Editorial and Advisory Roles
Fosu serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African Trade and Managing Editor of the Journal of African Economies. He has been a member of the editorial boards of numerous leading journals, including the European Journal of Development Research, Journal of Development Studies, Oxford Development Studies, World Bank Economic Review, and World Development. He has also played key advisory roles at both international and national levels. In 2021, he was appointed by the UN Secretary-General to the Committee of Experts on Public Administration. In Ghana, he has served on the Eminent Panel on Ghana Priorities: Eminent Panel | Copenhagen Consensus, as well as on the President’s Economic Advisory Council (2012) and the Fiscal Responsibility Advisory Council (2019-2020). Since 2019, he has been invited every year by the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, to nominate candidates for the Prize.
Research and publications
Fosu is internationally recognized for his work on the interconnections between growth, inequality, and poverty.[9] His 2017 article, Growth, Inequality, and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries: Recent Global Evidence, published in Research in Economics, received the Elsevier Atlas Award for its global impact on development studies.[10]
His research also covers institutions and development, the political economy of reform, export diversification, and macroeconomic stability.[11][12]
In addition to numerous journal articles, he has authored or edited more than a dozen books/volumes, including:
Growth and Institutions in African Development (Routledge, 2015)
Achieving Development Success: Strategies and Lessons from the Developing World (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Development Success: Historical Accounts from More Advanced Countries (Oxford University Press, 2013)
Poverty in Africa: Analytical and Policy Perspectives (University of Nairobi Press, 2009), with G. Mwabu and E. Thorbecke
The Political Economy of Economic Growth in Africa, 1960–2000: Country Case Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2008), with B. Ndulu, S. O’Connell, J.-P. Azam, R. Bates, J. Gunning, and D. Njinkeu
Post-conflict Economies in Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), with P. Collier
Awards and recognition
Fosu has received numerous honors recognizing his academic excellence and policy impact. He received the Elsevier Atlas Award in 2018 at the University of Oxford and has been consistently ranked among the top 1% of economists in Africa and the top 5% globally in terms of research output and citation impact, according to IDEAS/RePEc.[13] He is also listed among the world's top 2% of scientists based on publication citations. At least twenty of his works have been cited more than 100 times each.[14]
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