IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cap/wpaper/032012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Empirical Determinants of Government Efficiency: A study Based on Objective Indicators

Author

Listed:
  • Francisca Guedes de Oliveira

    (Faculdade de Economia e Gestão - Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Porto)

Abstract

This paper is concerned with two things: finding an objective and easily quantifiable measure of government efficiency and testing possible determinants of such quality. As measures of government efficiency we use the ratios of infant mortality rate to health expenditures as a percentage of GDP and the ratios of drop out and illiteracy rates to education expenditures as a percentage of GDP. We assume that government efficiency in providing health and education services depends on economic, political and cultural factors.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisca Guedes de Oliveira, 2012. "Empirical Determinants of Government Efficiency: A study Based on Objective Indicators," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 03, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
  • Handle: RePEc:cap:wpaper:032012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.feg.porto.ucp.pt/docentes/repec/WP/032012-Oliveira-Empirical_determinants_of_Government_efficiency.pdf
    File Function: First version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1999. "The Quality of Government," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 222-279, April.
    2. Torsten Persson, 2002. "Do Political Institutions Shape Economic Policy?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(3), pages 883-905, May.
    3. 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.
    4. António Afonso & Miguel St. Aubyn, 2004. "Non-parametric Approaches to Education and Health Expenditure Efficiency in OECD Countries," Working Papers Department of Economics 2004/01, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    5. Gaviria, Alejandro & Stein, Ernesto H., 2000. "The Evolution of Urban Concentration around the World: A Panel Approach," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1315, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    7. La Porta, Rafael, et al, 1997. "Trust in Large Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 333-338, May.
    8. McCleary, Rachel & Barro, Robert, 2002. "Religion and Political Economy in an International Panel," Scholarly Articles 3221170, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    9. Albouy, David, 2006. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Investigation of the Settler Mortality Data," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt8kt576x8, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    10. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "The size and scope of government:: Comparative politics with rational politicians," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 699-735, April.
    11. Albouy, David, 2006. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Investigation of the Settler Mortality Data," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt8kt576x8, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    12. Rauch, James E, 1995. "Bureaucracy, Infrastructure, and Economic Growth: Evidence from U.S. Cities during the Progressive Era," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 968-979, September.
    13. Mr. Aleš Bulíř & Ms. Zuzana Brixiova, 2001. "Growth Slowdown in Bureaucratic Economic Systems: An Issue Revisited," IMF Working Papers 2001/006, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & William Easterly, 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1243-1284.
    15. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rambe, Roosemarina Anggraini & Wibowo, Kodrat & Febriani, Ratu Eva & Septriani, Septriani, 2020. "Assessing the Local Government Efficiency: Evidence from Sumatra, Indonesia," Asian Journal of Applied Economics, Kasetsart University, Center for Applied Economics Research, vol. 27(2).
    2. Francisca Guedes de Oliveira, 2016. "Government Size versus Government Efficiency in a Model of Economic Growth," Eurasian Journal of Social Sciences, Eurasian Publications, vol. 4(2), pages 38-55.
    3. Hatra Voghouei & Mohammad Ali Jamali, 2018. "Determinants of government efficiency: does information technology play a role?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 8(3), pages 285-298, September.

    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. Francisca Guedes de Oliveira, 2010. "Evidence on the relation between public capital and Government efficiency," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 01, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    2. Gustav Hansson, 2009. "What Determines Rule of Law? An Empirical Investigation of Rival Models," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 371-393, August.
    3. Richard Bluhm & Adam Szirmai, 2011. "Institutions, Inequality and Growth: A review of theory and evidence on the institutional determinants of growth and inequality," Papers inwopa634, Innocenti Working Papers.
    4. Cooray, Arusha & Dzhumashev, Ratbek & Schneider, Friedrich, 2017. "How Does Corruption Affect Public Debt? An Empirical Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 115-127.
    5. Bhattacharyya, Sambit, 2009. "Unbundled institutions, human capital and growth," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 106-120, March.
    6. Knack, Stephen, 2002. "Governance and growth: measurement and evidence," MPRA Paper 28050, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Alesina, Alberto & Devleeschauwer, Arnaud & Easterly, William & Kurlat, Sergio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2003. "Fractionalization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 155-194, June.
    8. Stéphane Straub, 2000. "Factores determinantes empíricos de las buenas instituciones: ¿sabemos algo a ciencia cierta?," Research Department Publications 4216, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    9. Easterly, William & Levine, Ross, 2003. "Tropics, germs, and crops: how endowments influence economic development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 3-39, January.
    10. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    11. Stéphane Straub, 2000. "Empirical Determinants of Good Institutions: Do We Know Anything?," Research Department Publications 4215, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    12. Ahlerup, Pelle, 2009. "The Causal Effects of Ethnic Diversity: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Working Papers in Economics 386, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    13. Sambit Bhattacharyya, 2009. "Root Causes of African Underdevelopment," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 18(5), pages 745-780, November.
    14. Raphael A. Auer, 2008. "The Colonial and Geographic Origins of Comparative Development," Working Papers 2008-08, Swiss National Bank.
    15. Raphael A. Auer, 2007. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: Comment. A Solution to the Debate on Settler Mortality Rates," Working Papers 2007-09, Swiss National Bank.
    16. Easterly, William, 2007. "Inequality does cause underdevelopment: Insights from a new instrument," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 755-776, November.
    17. Hansson, Gustav, 2008. "Same Same but Different? A Comparison of Institutional Models," Working Papers in Economics 329, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    18. 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.
    19. Alali, Walid Y., 2010. "Impact of Institutions and Policy on Economic Growth: Empirical Evidence," EconStor Preprints 269878, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    20. Cingolani, Luciana & Crombrugghe, Denis de, 2012. "Techniques for dealing with reverse causality between institutions and economic performance," MERIT Working Papers 2012-034, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • I0 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:cap:wpaper:032012. 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: Ricardo Goncalves (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feucppt.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.