IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jed/journl/v45y2020i2p31-62.html

The Institutional Quality in West Africa: The Supremacy of Cultural and Geographical Factors

Author

Listed:
  • Oumarou Zallé and Idrissa M. Ouédraogo

    (Norbert Zongo University, Ouaga II University, Burkina Faso)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the relevance of cultural, political, economic and geographic approaches to account for the supremacy of cultural and geographic factors in explaining institutional quality in West Africa. The results show that cultural factors, followed by geography, play a significant role in understanding institutional quality. The results suggest that improving institutional quality requires strengthening democratisation processes by focusing on the cultural values of the population of a country of each country. Furthermore, it is necessary to promote and reinforce decentralisation processes to ensure the representativeness of the state throughout the territory.

Suggested Citation

  • Oumarou Zallé and Idrissa M. Ouédraogo, 2020. "The Institutional Quality in West Africa: The Supremacy of Cultural and Geographical Factors," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 45(2), pages 31-62, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:jed:journl:v:45:y:2020:i:2:p:31-62
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.jed.or.kr/full-text/45-2/2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Aristomène Varoudakis & Claude Jessua, 1996. "Régimes non démocratiques et croissance : théorie et estimation," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 47(3), pages 831-840.
    2. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    3. Mr. Carlos A Leite & Jens Weidmann, 1999. "Does Mother Nature Corrupt? Natural Resources, Corruption, and Economic Growth," IMF Working Papers 1999/085, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Jonathan Isham & Michael Woolcock & Lant Pritchett & Gwen Busby, 2005. "The Varieties of Resource Experience: Natural Resource Export Structures and the Political Economy of Economic Growth," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 19(2), pages 141-174.
    5. Nathan Nunn & Diego Puga, 2012. "Ruggedness: The Blessing of Bad Geography in Africa," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 20-36, February.
    6. Philippe Aghion, 2005. "Growth and Institutions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 32(1), pages 3-18, March.
    7. A. Chong & C. Calderón, 2000. "Causality and Feedback Between Institutional Measures and Economic Growth," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 69-81, March.
    8. Siba, Eyerusalem G., 2008. "Determinants of Institutional Quality in Sub-Saharan African Countries," Working Papers in Economics 310, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    9. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    10. Dani Rodrik & Arvind Subramanian & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(2), pages 131-165, June.
    11. Licht, Amir N. & Goldschmidt, Chanan & Schwartz, Shalom H., 2007. "Culture rules: The foundations of the rule of law and other norms of governance," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 659-688, December.
    12. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    13. Fearon, James D, 2003. "Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 195-222, June.
    14. Islam, Roumeen & Montenegro, Claudio E., 2002. "What determines the quality of institutions?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2764, The World Bank.
    15. Acemoglu, Daron, 2003. "Why not a political Coase theorem? Social conflict, commitment, and politics," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 620-652, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abdoul’ Mijiyawa, 2013. "Determinants of property rights institutions: survey of literature and new evidence," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 127-183, May.
    2. Beck, T.H.L., 2010. "Legal Institutions and Economic Development," Other publications TiSEM 8aa07b48-ce55-4cf6-8754-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Ruba Aljarallah, 2021. "An Analysis of the Impact of Rents from Non-renewable Natural Resources and Changes in Human Capital on Institutional Quality: A Case Study of Kuwait," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(5), pages 224-234.
    4. Kyriacou, Andreas P., 2016. "Individualism–collectivism, governance and economic development," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 91-104.
    5. Neelum Nigar, 2015. "The Composite Impact of Institutional Quality and Inequality on Economic Growth," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 54(4), pages 779-791.
    6. Ruba A. Aljarallah & Andrew Angus, 2020. "Dilemma of Natural Resource Abundance: A Case Study of Kuwait," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(1), pages 21582440198, January.
    7. Eicher, Theo S. & Schreiber, Till, 2010. "Structural policies and growth: Time series evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 169-179, January.
    8. Andrea Asoni, 2008. "Protection Of Property Rights And Growth As Political Equilibria," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 953-987, December.
    9. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    10. Nuno Torres & Óscar Afonso & Isabel Soares, 2010. "The connection between oil and economic growth revisited," FEP Working Papers 377, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    11. Fenske, James, 2010. "Institutions in African history and development: A review essay," MPRA Paper 23120, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Siddiqui, Danish Ahmed & Ahmed, Qazi Masood, 2013. "The effect of institutions on economic growth: A global analysis based on GMM dynamic panel estimation," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 18-33.
    13. Mohammad Sharif Karimi & Elham Heshmati Daiari, 2018. "Does Institutions Matter for Economic Development? Evidence for ASEAN Selected Countries," Iranian Economic Review (IER), Faculty of Economics,University of Tehran.Tehran,Iran, vol. 22(1), pages 1-20, Winter.
    14. Fabrizio Carmignani, 2015. "The Curse of Being Landlocked: Institutions Rather than Trade," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(10), pages 1594-1617, October.
    15. ROUGIER Eric, 2015. ""The parts and the whole”: Unbundling and re-bundling institutional systems and their effect on economic development," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2015-12, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    16. Kaznacheev, Peter, 2013. "Resource Rents and Economic Growth: Economic and institutional development in countries with a high share of income from the sale of natural resources. Analysis and recommendations based on internatio," EconStor Research Reports 121950, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    17. Williamson, Claudia R., 2012. "Dignity and development," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 763-771.
    18. Stela Cani, 2009. "Resource Abundance, Mineral Funds and Institutional Quality," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2009-04, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    19. Law, Siong Hook & Lim, Thong Cheen & Ismail, Normaz Wana, 2013. "Institutions and economic development: A Granger causality analysis of panel data evidence," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 610-624.
    20. Brunnschweiler, Christa N., 2008. "Cursing the Blessings? Natural Resource Abundance, Institutions, and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 399-419, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • K11 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Property Law
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:jed:journl:v:45:y:2020:i:2:p:31-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sung Y. Park (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eccaukr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.