IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bas/econth/y2017i1p69-82,83-95.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of poor institutional quality on economic growth – investigating the case of Sub-Saharan and Latin American economies prior to the world economic downturn

Author

Listed:
  • Sanjeev K. Sobhee

Abstract

Current empiricism does not reveal much how low quality institutions hamper economic growth in developing countries, and which particular form of institutional failures harms more. This paper fills up this gap by experimenting with a broad new data set on institutional quality comprising 42 economies pertaining to 30 Sub-Saharan Africa and 12 Latin America. Six indicators of institutional quality from Kaufmann et al. (2005 and 2007 databases) are used in several endogenous growth equations prior to the downturn of the world economy. After performing a battery of econometric tests, our major findings unravel that, besides improving institutional capital, developing countries must imperatively adopt drastic public sector reforms to foster economic growth. Moreover, a more vibrant public sector, free from corruption, which adopts market friendly policies, and ensures a more effective delivery of public services would indeed be growth perpetuating.

Suggested Citation

  • Sanjeev K. Sobhee, 2017. "The effects of poor institutional quality on economic growth – investigating the case of Sub-Saharan and Latin American economies prior to the world economic downturn," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 1, pages 69-82,83-95.
    • Handle: RePEc:bas:econth:y:2017:i:1:p:69-82,83-95
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://etj.iki.bas.bg/storage/app/uploads/public/62a/088/1d0/62a0881d068d8408107339.pdf
    Download Restriction: Fee access (Bulgarian)
    File URL: https://etj.iki.bas.bg/storage/app/uploads/public/62f/888/5ae/62f8885aeec40123871937.pdf
    Download Restriction: Fee access (English)
    ---><---

    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. Sanjeev Sobhee, 2009. "The economic success of Mauritius: lessons and policy options for Africa," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 29-42.
    2. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2003. "Institutions, trade, and growth : revisiting the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3004, The World Bank.
    3. Paul Collier, 2006. "African Growth: Why a 'Big Push'?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(2), pages 188-211, December.
    4. Dani Rodrik, 2006. "Institutions for High-Quality Growth: What They Are and How to Acquire Them," Chapters, in: Kartik Roy & Jörn Sideras (ed.), Institutions, Globalisation and Empowerment, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1995. "Institutions And Economic Performance: Cross‐Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Measures," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 207-227, November.
    6. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A., 2005. "Institutions as a Fundamental Cause of Long-Run Growth," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 6, pages 385-472, Elsevier.
    7. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    8. Knack, Stephen & Keefer, Philip, 1995. "Institutions and Economic Performance: Cross-Country Tests Using Alternative Institutional Indicators," MPRA Paper 23118, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson, 2005. "Unbundling Institutions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(5), pages 949-995, October.
    10. Mizon, Grayham E & Richard, Jean-Francois, 1986. "The Encompassing Principle and Its Application to Testing Non-nested Hypotheses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 657-678, May.
    11. Mr. Arvind Subramanian & Mr. Devesh Roy, 2001. "Who Can Explain The Mauritian Miracle: Meade, Romer, Sachs or Rodrik?," IMF Working Papers 2001/116, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Sanjeev Sobhee, 2009. "The economic success of Mauritius: lessons and policy options for Africa," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 29-42.
    13. Sylwester, Kevin, 2000. "Income inequality, education expenditures, and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 379-398, December.
    14. World Bank, 2005. "World Development Indicators 2005," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12426.
    15. Aron, Janine, 2000. "Growth and Institutions: A Review of the Evidence," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 15(1), pages 99-135, February.
    16. Edward L. Glaeser & Raven Saks, 2004. "Corruption in America," NBER Working Papers 10821, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. World Bank, 2005. "World Development Indicators 2005," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12425.
    18. Dollar, David & Kraay, Aart, 2003. "Institutions, trade, and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 133-162, January.
    19. Sanjeev K. Sobhee, 2010. "Would Better Institutional Quality Contribute towards Reducing the Size of Government in Sub-Saharan Africa?," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 4(3), pages 265-278, August.
    20. World Bank, 2010. "World Development Indicators 2010," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 4373.
    21. Benno J. Ndulu, 2006. "Infrastructure, Regional Integration and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Dealing with the disadvantages of Geography and Sovereign Fragmentation," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(2), pages 212-244, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Sodiq Arogundade & Mduduzi Biyase & Santos Bila, 2022. "Be Nice to Thy Neighbors: Spatial Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Poverty in Africa," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-20, June.

    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. Siddiqui, Danish Ahmed & Ahmed, Qazi Masood, 2013. "The effect of institutions on economic growth: A global analysis based on GMM dynamic panel estimation," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 18-33.
    2. Karim Khan, 2015. "Endogenous Institutional Change and Privileged Groups," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 54(3), pages 171-195.
    3. Hatice KÜÇÜKKAYA, 2017. "EUREFE’17 International Conference," Turkish Economic Review, KSP Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 343-344, September.
    4. Mehmet Ugur & David Sunderland, 2011. "Does Economic Governance Matter? New Contributions to the Debate," Chapters, in: Mehmet Ugur & David Sunderland (ed.), Does Economic Governance Matter?, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Khan, Karim, 2015. "Extractive Institutional Structure and Economic Development: Evidence from Nigeria," MPRA Paper 68559, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Lubna Hasan, 2007. "Myths and Realities of Long-run Development: A Look at Deeper Determinants," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 46(1), pages 19-44.
    7. Sambit Bhattacharyya, 2011. "Growth Miracles and Growth Debacles," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13609.
    8. Zwane, Talent & Biyase, Mduduzi & Binda, Thandolwethu, 2021. "Institutions and Technical Efficiency: A Stochastic Frontier Approach," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 74(4), pages 415-438.
    9. Slesman, Ly & Baharumshah, Ahmad Zubaidi & Ra'ees, Wahabuddin, 2015. "Institutional infrastructure and economic growth in member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 214-226.
    10. Aboal, Diego & Noya, Nelson & Rius, Andrés, 2014. "Contract Enforcement and Investment: A Systematic Review of the Evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 322-338.
    11. Rok Spruk & Mitja Kovac, 2019. "Transaction costs and economic growth under common legal system: State‐level evidence from Mexico," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 240-292, July.
    12. Hartwell, Christopher A., 2014. "The impact of institutional volatility on financial volatility in transition economies : a GARCH family approach," BOFIT Discussion Papers 6/2014, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    13. Kerekes, Carrie B. & Williamson, Claudia R., 2008. "Unveiling de Soto's mystery: property rights, capital formation, and development," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 299-325, December.
    14. Harashima, Taiji, 2017. "Should a Government Fiscally Intervene in a Recession and, If So, How?," MPRA Paper 78053, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Smaoui, Houcem & Nechi, Salem, 2017. "Does sukuk market development spur economic growth?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 136-147.
    16. Sebastián Fleitas & Andrés Rius & Carolina Román & Henry Willebald, 2013. "Contract enforcement, investment and growth in Uruguay since 1870," Documentos de Trabajo (working papers) 13-01, Instituto de Economía - IECON.
    17. Mehraj Ahmad Sheikh & Mushtaq Ahmad Malik, 2021. "The Nexus of Trade Openness, Institutions and Economic Growth: An Empirical Investigation of BRICS Countries," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 56(2), pages 206-215, May.
    18. Axel Dreher & Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Friedrich Schneider, 2014. "The devil is in the shadow. Do institutions affect income and productivity or only official income and official productivity?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(1), pages 121-141, January.
    19. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Violeta Vulovic & Yongzheng Liu, 2011. "Direct versus Indirect Taxation: Trends, Theory, and Economic Significance," Chapters, in: Emilio Albi & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Elgar Guide to Tax Systems, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.

    More about this item

    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:bas:econth:y:2017:i:1:p:69-82,83-95. 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: Diana Dimitrova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ikbasbg.html .

    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.