The Effects of Convergence in Governance on Capital Accumulation in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Countries

This paper aims to ascertain the effects of convergence in governance on investment decisions among a sample of 43 developing countries, using dynamic system GMM estimations. In an increasingly interdependent economic world, regions with good governance are considered to be areas of higher investment, as a result of further integration and collaborative action among member states. Since its foundation, in 1992, Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) countries have gone through a transition process and, to a large extent, this is about institutional transformation. Good governance institutions are an assurance to guarantee property rights and minimize transaction costs, thus creating an environment conducive to investment and growth. In this paper, we investigate the impact of BSEC on its member countries regarding convergence of governance institutions. We show that convergence has occurred within the region with respect to bureaucratic quality, control over corruption, law and order, internal conflict, ethnic tensions, but not to government stability and democratic accountability. The paper also calculates how much capital accumulation the region would gain by reaching the average institutional standards of the EU-12. This study is the first attempt in the BSEC region to investigate the link between regionalization and institutional convergence, at the same time as to quantify its economic impact through investment.