Institutions and Economic Growth in Africa: An Assessment
(2016) EKHM51 20161Department of Economic History
- Abstract
- This paper assesses the extent to which cross country empirical data can be used to explain the impact of institutions on economic growth in Africa. It does so by first establishing a theoretical framework on economic growth, focusing particularly on New Institutional Economics, also assessing several other theories that seek to explain economic growth. Having done so this paper analyzes whether institutional change precedes changing levels of economic growth, drawing on the extensive literature to construct a quantitative model. While this paper uses cross-country data and employs proxies for institutional quality that are widely employed in previous studies - such as settler mortality, the ICRG index as well as Kaufmann's Worldwide... (More)
- This paper assesses the extent to which cross country empirical data can be used to explain the impact of institutions on economic growth in Africa. It does so by first establishing a theoretical framework on economic growth, focusing particularly on New Institutional Economics, also assessing several other theories that seek to explain economic growth. Having done so this paper analyzes whether institutional change precedes changing levels of economic growth, drawing on the extensive literature to construct a quantitative model. While this paper uses cross-country data and employs proxies for institutional quality that are widely employed in previous studies - such as settler mortality, the ICRG index as well as Kaufmann's Worldwide Governance Indicators - this paper emphasizes that support for the measurable importance of institutions for economic development in Africa is weak, allows for selective data collection and possibly even data manipulation. Thus this paper concludes that research papers that emphasize the importance of institutions - or other 'deeper determinants' of economic growth - warrant thorough assessment of variables used. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8883625
- author
- Hoedemakers, Lennart LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- EKHM51 20161
- year
- 2016
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- New Institutional Economics, Africa, Economic Growth
- language
- English
- id
- 8883625
- date added to LUP
- 2016-08-02 11:27:44
- date last changed
- 2016-08-02 11:27:44
@misc{8883625,
abstract = {{This paper assesses the extent to which cross country empirical data can be used to explain the impact of institutions on economic growth in Africa. It does so by first establishing a theoretical framework on economic growth, focusing particularly on New Institutional Economics, also assessing several other theories that seek to explain economic growth. Having done so this paper analyzes whether institutional change precedes changing levels of economic growth, drawing on the extensive literature to construct a quantitative model. While this paper uses cross-country data and employs proxies for institutional quality that are widely employed in previous studies - such as settler mortality, the ICRG index as well as Kaufmann's Worldwide Governance Indicators - this paper emphasizes that support for the measurable importance of institutions for economic development in Africa is weak, allows for selective data collection and possibly even data manipulation. Thus this paper concludes that research papers that emphasize the importance of institutions - or other 'deeper determinants' of economic growth - warrant thorough assessment of variables used.}},
author = {{Hoedemakers, Lennart}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Institutions and Economic Growth in Africa: An Assessment}},
year = {{2016}},
}