IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wsi/wepxxx/v04y2018i03ns2382624x17500023.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does Water Governance Matter?

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel W. Bromley

    (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA)

  • Glen Anderson

    (Abt Associates, Durham, NC, USA)

Abstract

We develop a series of diagnostic models covering 82 of the world’s poorest countries over the period 1991–2015. Our purpose is to assess several important attributes of water governance in these developing countries. Specifically: (1) do water-related public services make important contributions to per capita GDP and general livelihood prospects? (2) what factors seem to explain the quite different national commitments to the provision of water-related public services? and (3) do observed variations in water-related public services provide evidence of governance quality? Our diagnostic models suggest that water-related public services indeed contribute to per capita GDP and to improved public health outcomes across these developing countries. We then derive a variable capturing fiscal effort in the provision of quasi-public services — the availability of improved water supply and sanitation services — controlling for variations in national ability to pay (per capita GDP). We call this commitment an index of instrumental governance. With this index of instrumental governance, we conclude that water governance offers an important measure of a proxy for the civic commitment of governments in the world’s poorest nations. We conclude that an important aspect of “governance” is captured by the extent to which governments make difficult financial commitments that will improve per capita GDP and general livelihood prospects of their citizens.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel W. Bromley & Glen Anderson, 2018. "Does Water Governance Matter?," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 4(03), pages 1-32, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:wsi:wepxxx:v:04:y:2018:i:03:n:s2382624x17500023
    DOI: 10.1142/S2382624X17500023
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S2382624X17500023
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1142/S2382624X17500023?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Pritchett, Lant & Woolcock, Michael, 2004. "Solutions When the Solution is the Problem: Arraying the Disarray in Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 191-212, February.
    2. David Dollar & Craig Burnside, 2000. "Aid, Policies, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 847-868, September.
    3. Saleth, R. Maria & Dinar, Ariel, 2008. "Linkages within institutional structure: an empirical analysis of water institutions," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 4(3), pages 375-401, December.
    4. Lant Pritchett, 1997. "Divergence, Big Time," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(3), pages 3-17, Summer.
    5. Dani Rodrik, 2010. "Diagnostics before Prescription," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 33-44, Summer.
    6. Dani Rodrik, 2006. "Goodbye Washington Consensus, Hello Washington Confusion? A Review of the World Bank's Economic Growth in the 1990s: Learning from a Decade of Reform," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 44(4), pages 973-987, December.
    7. World Bank, 2009. "The World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment — An Evaluation," World Bank Publications - Reports 10537, The World Bank Group.
    8. Bromley, Daniel W., 2008. "Resource degradation in the African commons: accounting for institutional decay," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(5), pages 539-563, October.
    9. Saleth, R. Maria & Dinar, Ariel, 2009. "The Impact of Multiple Policy Interventions on Food Security," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 923-938, November.
    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. Sanford V. Berg, 2020. "Performance Assessment Using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Water Utilities: A Primer," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(02), pages 1-25, April.
    2. Daniel, D. & Pande, Saket & Rietveld, Luuk, 2022. "Endogeneity in water use behaviour across case studies of household water treatment adoption in developing countries," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).

    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. William Easterly, 2009. "Can the West Save Africa?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 373-447, June.
    2. Giovanni Dosi & Andrea Roventini & Emmanuele Russo, 2020. "Public Policies And The Art Of Catching Up," Working Papers hal-03242369, HAL.
    3. Alan King & Carlyn Ramlogan-Dobson, 2016. "Is there club convergence in Latin America?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 1011-1031, November.
    4. Simplice Asongu, 2014. "The Questionable Economics of Development Assistance in Africa: Hot-Fresh Evidence, 1996–2010," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 455-480, December.
    5. Giovanni Dosi & Andrea Roventini & Emanuele Russo, 2021. "Public policies and the art of catching up: matching the historical evidence with a multicountry agent-based model [Catching up, forging ahead, and falling behind]," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 30(4), pages 1011-1036.
    6. Lant Pritchett & Erik Werker, 2012. "Developing the guts of a GUT (Grand Unified Theory): elite commitment and inclusive growth," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-016-12, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    7. Matt Andrews, 2014. "An Ends-Means Approach to Looking at Governance," CID Working Papers 281, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    8. Andrews, Matt, 2014. "An Ends-Means Approach to Looking at Governance," Working Paper Series rwp14-022, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    9. Tavares, Jose, 2003. "Does foreign aid corrupt?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 99-106, April.
    10. Gaoussou Diarra & Patrick Plane, 2014. "Assessing the World Bank's Influence on the Good Governance Paradigm," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(4), pages 473-487, December.
    11. Lodewijk Smets & Stephen Knack, 2018. "World Bank Policy Lending and the Quality of Public-Sector Governance," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(1), pages 29-54.
    12. Shaikh, Salman, 2012. "Examining Theories of Growth & Development & Policy Response Based on Them from Islamic Perspective," MPRA Paper 38530, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Asongu Simplice & Jellal Mohamed, 2014. "International aid, corruption and fiscal policy behavior," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 14/007, African Governance and Development Institute..
    14. Simplice A. Asongu, 2015. "Institutional benchmarking of foreign aid effectiveness in Africa," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(6), pages 543-565, June.
    15. Clemens, Michael A. & Kenny, Charles J. & Moss, Todd J., 2007. "The Trouble with the MDGs: Confronting Expectations of Aid and Development Success," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 735-751, May.
    16. Georgios Karras, 2006. "Foreign aid and long-run economic growth: empirical evidence for a panel of developing countries," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 15-28.
    17. Simplice A. Asongu & Mohamed Jellal, 2014. "Foreign aid, investment and fiscal policy behavior: theory and empirical evidence," Research Africa Network Working Papers 14/030, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    18. Crafts, Nicholas & Kaiser, Kai, 2004. "Long-term growth prospects in transition economies: a reappraisal," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 101-118, March.
    19. Simplice Asongu & Mohamed Jellal, 2016. "Foreign Aid Fiscal Policy: Theory and Evidence," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 58(2), pages 279-314, June.
    20. Dani Rodrik, 2011. "The future of economic convergence," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 13-52.

    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:wsi:wepxxx:v:04:y:2018:i:03:n:s2382624x17500023. 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: Tai Tone Lim (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.worldscinet.com/wep/wep.shtml .

    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.