Author: Herbert H. Werlin.

This article attempts to explain the reasons for the widening economic disparities between Ghana and South Korea from a 1957 level of near equal per-capita income. It builds upon the writing of Carl Rosberg, suggesting the need to go beyond for the factors stressed in the 1982 Jackson/Rosberg book: socialism, clientelism, and authoritarianism. In addition to an analysis of policy selection and orientation, three case studies are presented comparing program implementation (regarding rural development, industrial parks, and public enterprises), using political elasticity theory. While lack of political will, more than anything else, seems responsible for Ghana's slow economic progress, the search for additional explanations (inspired by Rosberg) must continue.