National Institutions and Subnational Development in Africa

Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou

CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE)

Abstract: We investigate the role of national institutions on subnational African development ina novel framework that accounts both for local geography and cultural-genetic traits. We exploit the fact that the political boundaries in the eve of African independence partitioned more than two hundred ethnic groups across adjacent countries subjecting similar cultures, residing in homogeneous geographic areas, to different formal institutions. Using both a matching-type and a spatial regression discontinuity approach we show that differences in countrywide institutional structures across the national border do not explain within-ethnicity differences in economic performance, as captured by satellite images of light density. The average non-effect of national institutions on ethnic development masks considerable heterogeneity partially driven by the diminishing role of national institutions in areas further from the capital cities.

Keywords: Africa; Borders; Ethnicities; Development; National Institutions; Regression Discontinuity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev, nep-geo and nep-gro
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (52)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/resear ... 154-2013_stelios.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: National Institutions and Subnational Development in Africa (2014)
Working Paper: National Institutions and Subnational Development in Africa (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cge:wacage:154

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CAGE Online Working Paper Series from Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jane Snape ().