Quality of sub-national government and regional development in Africa

Iddawela, Yohan, Lee, Neil ORCID: 0000-0002-4138-7163 and Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés ORCID: 0000-0002-8041-0856 (2021) Quality of sub-national government and regional development in Africa. International Inequalities Institute Working Papers (59). London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.

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Abstract

Despite widespread interest in government quality and economic development, the role of sub-national government has been largely overlooked. This represents an omission in Africa, given ongoing processes of devolution in much of the continent. In this article, we consider the impact of sub-national government institutions on economic development in 356 regions across 22 African countries. We create a novel index of sub-national government quality based on large-scale survey data and assess its impact on regional economies using satellite data on night light luminosity. To address causality concerns, we instrument sub-national government quality with data from pre-colonial societies. Our results show a positive and significant relationship between sub-national government quality and regional economic development, even when controlling for the quality of national level institutions. Better sub-national governments are a powerful but often overlooked determinant of development in Africa.

Item Type:	Monograph (Working Paper)
Official URL:	https://www.lse.ac.uk/International-Inequalities/P...
Additional Information:	© 2021 The Authors
Divisions:	Geography & Environment International Inequalities Institute
Subjects:	J Political Science > JQ Political institutions Asia J Political Science > JS Local government Municipal government H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Date Deposited:	17 Feb 2021 08:30
Last Modified:	15 Sep 2023 23:53
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/108855

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