Nothing Special   »   [go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/9075.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

National Institutions and African Development: Evidence from Partitioned Ethnicities

Author

Listed:
  • Papaioannou, Elias
  • Michalopoulos, Stelios
Abstract
We investigate the role of national institutions on regional development in a novel framework. We exploit the fact that the arbitrary political boundaries in the eve of African independence partitioned more than two hundred ethnic groups across different countries subjecting similar cultures, residing in homogeneous geographic areas, to different formal institutions. Using both a matching-type and a regression discontinuity approach we show that differences in countrywide institutional structures across the national border do not explain within-ethnicity differences in economic performance, as captured by satellite light density at night. Despite some evidence of heterogeneity, for the overwhelming majority of groups the relationship is economically and statistically insignificant. While our results do not necessarily generalize to areas far from the national borders, close to the capital cities or to other parts of the world, they suggest that the cross-country positive correlation between formal national institutions and economic development has to be carefully interpreted.

Suggested Citation

  • Papaioannou, Elias & Michalopoulos, Stelios, 2012. "National Institutions and African Development: Evidence from Partitioned Ethnicities," CEPR Discussion Papers 9075, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9075
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP9075
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion, 2005. "Growth and Institutions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-18, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. The Skeptics Guide to Institutions – Part 3
      by dvollrath in The Growth Economics Blog on 2014-11-24 00:37:12

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Besley, Timothy & Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2014. "The Legacy of Historical Conflict: Evidence from Africa," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 108(2), pages 319-336, May.
    2. Denis Cogneau & Sandrine Mesplé-Somps & Gilles Spielvogel, 2015. "Development at the Border: Policies and National Integration in Côte D'Ivoire and Its Neighbors," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 29(1), pages 41-71.
    3. Dimico, Arcangelo, 2013. "Size Matters: The Effect of the Scramble for Africa on Informal Institutions and Development," MPRA Paper 54550, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 Mar 2014.
    4. Dimico, Arcangelo, 2014. "Poverty trap and educational shock: Evidence from missionary fields," QUCEH Working Paper Series 14-07, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    5. Tcheta-Bampa, Albert & Kodila-Tedika, Oasis, 2018. "Conditions institutionnelles de la malédiction des ressources naturelles en Afrique sur les performances économiques [Institutional conditions of the natural resource curse in Africa on economic pe," MPRA Paper 86511, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Miguel Rivera-Santos & Diane Holt & David Littlewood & Ans Kolk, 2015. "Social Entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa," Post-Print hal-02276715, HAL.
    7. Arcangelo Dimico, 2017. "Size Matters: The Effect of the Size of Ethnic Groups on Development," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 79(3), pages 291-318, June.
    8. Denis Cogneau & Yannick Dupraz, 2014. "Questionable Inference on the Power of Pre-Colonial Institutions in Africa," PSE Working Papers halshs-01018548, HAL.
    9. Jyotsna Jha & Niveditha Menon & Neha Ghatak, 2022. "The political economy of women's empowerment policies in India: Understanding it through the beginning and end of the Mahila Samakhya programme," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-56, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eicher, Theo S. & Schreiber, Till, 2010. "Structural policies and growth: Time series evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 169-179, January.
    2. Henrekson, Magnus & Johansson, Dan, 2010. "Firm Growth, Institutions and Structural Transformation," Ratio Working Papers 150, The Ratio Institute.
    3. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2011. "Market Freedom and the Global Recession," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 59(1), pages 111-135, April.
    4. Canavire-Bacarreza, Gustavo & Martínez-Vázquez, Jorge & Vulovic, Violeta, 2013. "Taxation and Economic Growth in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 4583, Inter-American Development Bank.
    5. Tiago Neves Sequeira & Marcelo Santos, 2019. "Technology in 1500 and genetic diversity," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1145-1165, April.
    6. Litina, Anastasia, 2012. "Unfavorable land endowment, cooperation, and reversal of fortune," MPRA Paper 39702, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Kenneth Gillingham & William D. Nordhaus & David Anthoff & Geoffrey Blanford & Valentina Bosetti & Peter Christensen & Haewon McJeon & John Reilly & Paul Sztorc, 2015. "Modeling Uncertainty in Climate Change: A Multi-Model Comparison," NBER Working Papers 21637, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Delgado, Michael S. & McCloud, Nadine & Kumbhakar, Subal C., 2014. "A generalized empirical model of corruption, foreign direct investment, and growth," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 298-316.
    9. Mayshar, Joram & Moav, Omer & Neeman, Zvika, 2011. "Transparency, Appropriability and the Early State," CEPR Discussion Papers 8548, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Marattin, Luigi & Marzo, Massimiliano & Zagaglia, Paolo, 2013. "Distortionary tax instruments and implementable monetary policy," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 219-243.
    11. Andrianova, Svetlana & Demetriades, Panicos & Xu, Chenggang, 2011. "Political Economy Origins of Financial Markets in Europe and Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 686-699, May.
    12. John Van Reenen, 2018. "Increasing differences between firms: market power and the macro-economy," CEP Discussion Papers dp1576, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    13. Theo S. Eicher & Andreas Leukert, 2009. "Institutions and Economic Performance: Endogeneity and Parameter Heterogeneity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 197-219, February.
    14. Falkinger, Josef & Grossmann, Volker, 2013. "Oligarchic land ownership, entrepreneurship, and economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 206-215.
    15. Gani, Azmat & Scrimgeour, Frank, 2014. "Modeling governance and water pollution using the institutional ecological economic framework," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 363-372.
    16. Davide Fiaschi & Andrea Mario Lavezzi & Angela Parenti, 2020. "Deep and Proximate Determinants of the World Income Distribution," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 66(3), pages 677-710, September.
    17. James B. Ang & Jakob B. Madsen, 2012. "Risk capital, private credit, and innovative production," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(4), pages 1608-1639, November.
    18. De Geest, Lawrence R. & Kingsley, David C., 2021. "Norm enforcement with incomplete information," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 403-430.
    19. Baumöhl, Eduard & Iwasaki, Ichiro & Kočenda, Evžen, 2019. "Institutions and determinants of firm survival in European emerging markets," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 431-453.
    20. Harashima, Taiji, 2017. "Should a Government Fiscally Intervene in a Recession and, If So, How?," MPRA Paper 78053, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Africa; Borders; Development; Ethnicity; Institutions; Regression discontinuity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N17 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Africa; Oceania
    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9075. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.