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25 Cato J. 541 (2005)
The Loss of Property Rights and the Collapse of Zimbabwe

handle is hein.journals/catoj25 and id is 549 raw text is: THE Loss OF PROPERTY RIGHTS AND THE COLLAPSE OF ZIMBABWE Craig J. Richardson What in the world happened to Zimbabwe? Although the country certainly had its share of difficulties during the first 25 years since independence in 1980, it largely dodged the famines, civil strife, and grossly mismanaged government policies so common in other sub- Saharan African countries. Through the 1980s, its annual real GDP growth averaged more than 5 percent, and, unlike other African coun- tries, agricultural yields were large enough to allow the country to export grain. In the following decade, economic growth slowed, and government policies were less than efficient, but Zimbabwe still man- aged to grow an average of 4.3 percent, in real terms.' The govern- ment also offered free education and relatively good access to medical care. Population growth was slowing, and foreign direct investment increasing. With rich mineral assets, an educated workforce, and beautiful natural wonders, Zimbabwe appeared to have the best chance to be an African success story. However, in 2000 through 2003, the Zimbabwean government ini- tiated a land reform policy that involved forcibly taking over white- owned commercial farms, ostensibly to redistribute this property to landless blacks. The rationale for this policy was to redress the British seizure of fertile farmland in the late 1890s, which resulted in hun- dreds of thousands of blacks being pushed onto lower grade commu- nal lands. No compensation was paid to the commercial farmers, and hun- dreds of thousands of employed black farm workers were left without Cato journal, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Fall 2005). Copyright @ Cato Institute. All rights reserved. Craig Richardson is Associate Professor of Economics at Salem College. He thanks Barrie Richardson, Chris Mackie, Art Goldsmith, Hernando de Soto, and Arthur Goldsmith for help- ful comments. 'This excludes 1992, during which Zimbabwe experienced its worst drought in 50 years, causing GDP to drop by 9 percent. There were no other years of negative growth during the 1990s, except 1999, in which GDP declined by 0.7 percent. 541

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