Leadership favouritism in Africa

Soumahoro, Souleymane

doi:10.1080/13504851.2015.1021451

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Analyses of SSA have also detected ethno-regional favouritism. In a cross-sectional analysis, Soumahoro (2015) finds a strong positive effect of African presidents on development in their ethnic homelands. Öhler and Nunnenkamp (2014) find the presidents’ birth regions across 27 countries to be over-receiving in terms of aid projects, with the results being driven by infrastructure projects.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Ethno-political favouritism in maternal health care service delivery: Micro-level evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, 1981–2014

Theisen

Strand

Østby

2020

International Area Studies Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is commonly held that political leaders favour people of the same ethnic origin. We test this argument of ethno-political favouritism by studying variations in the usage of maternal health care services across groups in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). More specifically, we link geo-referenced individual-level data from the Demographic and Health Surveys on 601,311 births by 399,908 mothers in 31 countries during the period 1981–2014 with data on the settlement of ethnic groups and their political status. Our results indicate that women benefit from the shift that brings co-ethnics into power, increasing the probability of receiving maternal health care services. The effect strengthens with increased competitiveness around elections. We advance the current literature in four important ways. Firstly, we undertake the first analysis that utilizes shifts in ethno-political status for the same individual, effectively eliminating competing time-invariant explanations to that of shifts in ethno-political status. Secondly, since SSA governments often incorporate multiple groups, we test the effect of patronage on being co-ethnic with cabinet members in general, and not only the president. Thirdly, health services constitute the public good most desired by citizens of SSA. Our measure captures a vital health service that is highly desired across groups. An increase in usage likely reflects genuine trickle-down effects of having co-ethnics in power, a crucial ingredient in building popular support for ethnic patrons. Fourthly, we show that electoral competition is an important conditioner of ethno-political favouritism.

show abstract

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Ethno-political favouritism in maternal health care service delivery: Micro-level evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, 1981–2014

Theisen

Strand

Østby

2020

International Area Studies Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…All specification includes municipality fixed effects. Municipality fixed effects are an important check on unobservables at the subnational level given municipal decentralization to 16 Several other recent studies have also used lighting data explicitly for the purpose of investigating potential ethno-regional favoritism (Kramon and Posner, 2013;Hodler and Raschky, 2014;Soumahoro, 2015) Fig. 2 Luminosity changes in Bolivia 17 Municipalities in Bolivia are more akin to counties in the USA.…”

Section: Nighttime Lightingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of studies have shown that while lighting data has limitations, particularly when dealing with highly developed areas where light saturation generates a top coding issue, it often provides a useful measure in areas where alternative statistics may be lacking or unreliable (Chen and Nordhaus 2011). These sources of data are particularly promising for studying ethnic favoritism, and Hodler and Raschky (2014) and Soumahoro (2015) combine night lights data with anthropological maps of ethnicity, finding evidence of targeted and regional ethnic favoritism in economic growth outcomes, respectively. Pairing satellite measures of economic activity with census maps on indigenous populations, we find that in this setting, the night light evidence confirms our findings from household surveys-suggesting a narrowing in inequality for economic activity between indigenous and non-indigenous populations after the election of Morales.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identity, Patronage, and Redistribution: Economic Inequality in Bolivia under Evo Morales

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper investigates the extent to which the election of Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) party is associated with a redistribution of economic resources in favor of indigenous populations in Bolivia. We employ household surveys over the period 2000-2013 and a difference framework to study changes in the income distribution. While the analysis period has been one of rapid economic expansion for Bolivia, we show that indigenous groups exhibit significantly higher than average income and expenditure growth in the post-election period, closing roughly one quarter of the income gap with nonindigenous households. These benefits appear to accrue for most indigenous populations, and we find no robust evidence of a preferential impact on any one specific indigenous group. We corroborate these findings with placebo tests and with estimates of economic activity from satellite measures of nighttime lighting paired with census maps of ethnic composition.

show abstract

Ethnic favoritism: An axiom of politics?

Luca

Hodler²,

Raschky

et al. 2018

Journal of Development Economics

153

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. We investigate the prevalence and determinants of ethnic favoritism, i.e., preferential public policies targeted at the political leader's ethnic group. We construct a panel dataset of 2,022 ethnographic regions from 139 countries with annual observations from 1992 to 2012, and use nighttime light intensity as output measure to capture the distributive effects of a wide range of policies. We find robust evidence for ethnic favoritism: the political leaders' ethnographic regions enjoy 10% higher nighttime light intensity. We further find that ethnic favoritism is a global rather than Sub-Saharan African phenomenon, which is present in poor as well as rich countries; that political institutions have a weak effect on ethnic favoritism; that ethnic favoritism is most prevalent in ethnically fractionalized and segregated countries with long established polities; and that ethnic favoritism does not contribute to sustainable development. Terms of use: Documents inJEL-Code: D720, R110, J150, O430.

show abstract

Leadership favouritism in Africa

Cited by 5 publications

References 10 publications

Ethno-political favouritism in maternal health care service delivery: Micro-level evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, 1981–2014

Ethno-political favouritism in maternal health care service delivery: Micro-level evidence from sub-Saharan Africa, 1981–2014

Identity, Patronage, and Redistribution: Economic Inequality in Bolivia under Evo Morales

Ethnic favoritism: An axiom of politics?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About