Implementing the APRM: Views From Civil Society - South Africa Report (June 2011)

This report was published by the South african Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA) and reflects the views of civil society researchers and activists convened by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) on the implementaion of the APRM in South Africa. It takes as supplementary reference points South Africa's Implementation Reports (SAIRs). The report intends to complement the two SAIRs by providing evidence based feedback on how the issues in the Country Review Report have been addressed since 2007. Click here for the full report.

Institutions and economic development: theory, policy and history

This article, in Journal of Institutional Economics, tries to advance the understanding of institutional economics by critically examining the currently dominant discourse o institutions and economic development. The article argues that the discourse suffers from theoretical problems - its neglect of causality running from development to institutions; its inability to see the impossibility of a free market; its belief that the freest market and the strongest protection of private property rights are best for economic development; and its poor understanding of changes within institutions themselves. Click here to access the article.

Institutions and Sectoral Diversification in Botswana

This paper argues that countries with good institutional environments can promote sectoral diversification in an economy by subsidizing firms with positive externalities. The existence of external benefits that can be realized through subsidization is shown with a standard trade model, and an extension of that model shows that good political institutions-specifically, strong constraints on the executive to prevent corruption will lead to more needs being realised from subsidies, that is, all other things being equal. Data from Botswana lends support to this theory. Click here to access the full paper.

Quality of Government is Needed to Reduce Poverty and Economic Inequality

It is a fact that lots of people in some developing countries have been lifted out of poverty during the recent decade, but severe poverty remains a huge problem, not least in Sub-Sahara Africa. Recognizing the importance of institutions for alleviating poverty and economic inequalities, this paper starts by asking the question “which institutions”. The paper posits that representative democracy seems to work poorly as a cure against poverty or large-scale economic inequalities. According to the paper, empirical analysis shows that this holds true for poor (non-OECD) countries. The main empirical analysis tests the relation between measures of QoG - Quality of Government – (such as levels of corruption and the rule of law) and poverty/inequality. The empirical analysis covers both a large n-analysis and a comparison of two cases (Singapore and Jamaica), The main conclusion from the large-n empirical test is that the quality of government matters for reducing absolute poverty among poor countries and for reducing relative economic inequalities among rich as well as among poor countries also after controlling for democracy. This conclusion if strengthened by the comparative analysis of democratic but low QoG Jamaica and authoritarian but high QoG Singapore. Click here to read more.