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Dictatorship, Democracy, and the Provision of Public Goods

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  • Deacon, Robert
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    Abstract

    A model of governance implies that democracies provide public goods at different levels than dictatorships. Systems of governance are characterized by inclusiveness—the degree to which public good decisions reflect the interests of all citizens versus an elite subset. The theory indicates that less inclusive (autocratic) governments will under-provide public consumption goods relative to more inclusive (democratic) governments. Governance indicators are formed from data on attributes of governments, e.g., the method of selecting the chief executive, the power of the legislature, and the openness of political competition. Autocratic governments are found to provide public schooling, roads, safe water, public sanitation, and pollution control at levels far below democracies. Public goods provision is strongly related to per capita income in democracies, but not in autocracies.

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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara in its series University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series with number qt9h54w76c.

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    Date of creation: 01 Jul 2003
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    Handle: RePEc:cdl:ucsbec:qt9h54w76c

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    1. Martin C. McGuire & Mancur Olson Jr., 1996. "The Economics of Autocracy and Majority Rule: The Invisible Hand and the Use of Force," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(1), pages 72-96, March.
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    5. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," NBER Working Papers 3120, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    9. Stern , David I., 1998. "Progress on the environmental Kuznets curve?," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(02), pages 173-196, May.
    10. Marcouiller, Douglas & Young, Leslie, 1995. "The Black Hole of Graft: The Predatory State and the Informal Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 630-46, June.
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    Cited by:
    1. Resnick, Danielle & Birner, Regina, 2006. "Does good governance contribute to pro-poor growth?: a review of the evidence from cross-country studies," DSGD discussion papers 30, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Luo, Renfu & Zhang, Linxiu & Huang, Jikun & Rozelle, Scott, 2009. "Village Elections, Public Goods Investments and Pork Barrel Politics, Chinese-style," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 50143, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    3. Resnick, Danielle & Birner, Regina, 2005. "Does Good Governance Contribute to Pro-poor Growth?: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Evidence from Cross-Country Studies," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Kiel 2005 5, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    4. Bulte, Erwin H. & Damania, Richard & Deacon, Robert T., 2005. "Resource intensity, institutions, and development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(7), pages 1029-1044, July.
    5. Richard Damania & Arnab Gupta, 2004. "Political Competition, Welfare Outcomes and Expenditures on Human Development: The Experience of a Democracy," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 147, Econometric Society.

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