Democracy, consumption, and growth in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

This article studies the effect of political regime type on economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Democracy promotes growth because it conditions government consumption so that consumption is used for public purposes rather than private needs and this in turn leads to faster growth. By conditioning consumption towards public goods and away from private goods, we should see that consumption in democratic regimes is associated with more public goods like roads and education while in authoritarian regimes consumption yields less of these goods. Likewise, consumption should be associated with falling fertility in democratic regimes and rising fertility in authoritarian regimes. Using several measures of growth, the empirical estimates from a large- n fixed-effects regression show that democracy conditions consumption so that the latter is associated with faster growth. Moreover, the empirical analysis indicates that government consumption in democratic regimes is associated with more education completion and lower fertility rates.

Natural resources and economic growth: Does political regime matter for Tunisia?

“…Thus, similar argument can be given for the negative effect of political regime reported in models 1–2 of Table 4. The positive effect of political regime on economic growth in model 4 is in line with arguments by Doces (2020), Asiedu (2016), and Veisi (2017) that strong democratic regime suppports economic growth by enhancing infrastructure; supporting foreign direct investments as well as entrepreneurial development; and the promotion of civil rights, human rights, and rule of law for its citizens, respectively.…”

“…They, however, concluded that evidence for or against the resource curse hypothesis is dependent on the prevalence of specific conditions. Although the effect of political regime on economic growth has been examined empirically for different countries and regions with varied outcomes (Doces, 2020; Okunlola, 2019), there is little evidence on how regime type interacts with natural resources to influence economic growth. It is in this regard that the study analyses the effect of the interaction between natural resource and political regime on economic growth.…”

“…Other researchers (Auty & Gelb, 2001; Campos & Nugent, 1999; Murshed, 2004) have also noted that a country's quality of institution including political regime will determine whether natural resources would be a blessing or a curse to its economic growth. Researchers have therefore shown keen interest to investigate the effect of political regime and other institutional qualities on natural resource–growth nexus (Amini 2018; Amiri et al, 2019; Bah, 2016; Moshiri & Hayati, 2017; Doces, 2020 ) . The current study is therefore set out to investigate the effect of natural resources on economic growth in Tunisia and how political regime affects the relationship between natural resources and growth.…”

The untold story of the modernization thesis: Urbanization and corruption in developing countries

“…Instead, urbanization seems to work against the major objective it was supposed to promote. This analysis shows that it does so because urbanization increases corruption, which as we know is a major determinant of economic growth and social well-being (Doces, 2020;Gyimah-Brempong, 2002;Mauro, 1995). This finding is consistent with Henderson (2003) who posits that urbanization is not a synonym for development, and also Fox (2013) who shows that economic growth does not follow urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa as it does in other parts of the world.…”

The political economy of corruption in Africa: urbanization, trust, and motivations

“…Instead, urbanization seems to work against the major objective it was supposed to promote. This analysis shows that it does so because urbanization increases corruption, which as we know is a major determinant of economic growth and social well-being (Mauro, 1995;Gyimah-Brempong, 2002;Doces, 2020). This finding is consistent with who posits that urbanization is not a synonym of development, and also Fox (2013) who shows that economic growth does not follow urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa as it does in other parts of the world.…”