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Leader Value Added : Assessing the Growth Contribution of Individual National Leaders

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  • Easterly,William R.
  • Pennings,Steven Michael

Abstract

Previous literature suggests that leaders matter for growth in general. This paper asks which leaders matter and develops a methodology to estimate the growth contribution of individual leaders and calculate its precision. The findings show that few leaders have statistically significant contributions; it is difficult to know who is good for growth and who is not. The paper also finds that the most intuitive estimate of a leader's contribution -- the average growth rate during tenure -- is largely useless for measuring his or her true contribution. Consequently, many leaders with statistically significant growth effects are surprises. Moreover, leaders in non-democratic countries are no more likely to be statistically significant than leaders in democratic ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Easterly,William R. & Pennings,Steven Michael, 2020. "Leader Value Added : Assessing the Growth Contribution of Individual National Leaders," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9215, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9215
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Oscar Calvo-Gonz'alez & Axel Eizmendi & Germ'an Reyes, 2022. "The Shifting Attention of Political Leaders: Evidence from Two Centuries of Presidential Speeches," Papers 2209.00540, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    2. Julieta Peveri, 2021. "The Wise, the Politician and the Strongman: National Leaders' Type and Quality of Governance," AMSE Working Papers 2120, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France, revised May 2022.
    3. Paul Pelzl & Steven Poelhekke, 2023. "Democratization, leader education and growth: firm-level evidence from Indonesia," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 571-600, December.
    4. Julieta Peveri, 2021. "The Wise, the Politician and the Strongman: National Leaders' Type and Quality of Governance," Working Papers halshs-03173020, HAL.
    5. Harouna Sedgo, 2024. "Corruption and leadership in Africa: Evidence from Burkina Faso," EconomiX Working Papers 2024-16, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    6. Boumans, Dorine & Gründler, Klaus & Potrafke, Niklas & Ruthardt, Fabian, 2024. "Political leaders and macroeconomic expectations: Evidence from a global survey experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 235(C).
    7. Peveri, Julieta, 2022. "The wise, the politician, and the strongman: Types of national leaders and quality of governance," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 849-895.
    8. Richard Pomfret, 2021. "Central Asian Economies: Thirty Years After Dissolution of the Soviet Union," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 63(4), pages 537-556, December.

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