Do African economies grow similarly?

This paper examines economic growth in 52 African countries for 1961-2016 and seeks to find if there is common growth. As all African countries have their particular features, concerning climate, harvest, industry, size, politics, and infrastructure, and more, it seems best to rely on a non-parametric method. Dynamic Time Warping is such a convenient method, also as it allows leads and lags across countries to vary over time, and as it can easily be incorporated into a clustering technique. Five clusters are found, two of which concern Equatorial Guinea and Botswana, and the three other clusters have common growth rates of about 0, 2 and 4 over more than five decades.