Law, Politics and the Quality of Government in Africa

Asongu, Simplice and Nwachukwu, Jacinta (2016): Law, Politics and the Quality of Government in Africa. Forthcoming in: Politics & Policy

Abstract

This paper examines interconnections between law, politics and the quality of government in Africa. We investigate whether African democracies enjoy relatively better government quality compared to their counterparts with more autocratic inclinations. The empirical evidence is based on Instrumental variable Two-Stage-Least Squares and Fixed Effects with data from 38 African countries for the period 1994-2010. Political regimes of democracy, polity and autocracy are instrumented with income-levels, legal-origins, religious-dominations and press-freedom to account for government quality dynamics, of corruption-control, government-effectiveness, voice and accountability, political-stability, regulation quality and the rule of law. Findings show that democracy has an edge over autocracy while the latter and polity overlap. As a policy implication, democracy once initiated should be accelerated to edge the appeals of authoritarian regimes.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Law; Politics; Democracy; Government Policy; Development
• Subjects: K - Law and Economics > K0 - General > K00 - General; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O10 - General; P - Economic Systems > P1 - Capitalist Systems > P16 - Political Economy; P - Economic Systems > P4 - Other Economic Systems > P43 - Public Economics ; Financial Economics; P - Economic Systems > P5 - Comparative Economic Systems > P50 - General

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