IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/gmonwp/halshs-00962698.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Politics and the geographic allocation of public funds in a semi-democracy. The case of Ghana, 1996 - 2004

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre Andre

    (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - UCP - Université de Cergy Pontoise - Université Paris-Seine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Sandrine Mesplé-Somps

    (DIAL - Développement, institutions et analyses de long terme)

Abstract

The body of literature on purely democratic countries can sometimes fail to explain the behavior of government in semi-democratic African countries. Empirical and theoretical political economic papers find that public funds target ruling party supporters and swing districts. Our results, however, suggest that the opposite was true of Ghana. We observe that pro-government districts received less public investment when the NDC was in power. We posit that this _nding is partially driven by the government's will to curry favor with opposition politicians. Indeed, in addition to pursuing its electoral objectives, the government of an emerging democracy may fear political instability and keep the lid on potential unrest by bargaining with opposition leaders. Our analysis also shows that, when controlling for votes and other covariates (including wealth, urbanization and density), public goods allocation is not driven by ethnic group targeting either.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Andre & Sandrine Mesplé-Somps, 2010. "Politics and the geographic allocation of public funds in a semi-democracy. The case of Ghana, 1996 - 2004," PSE - G-MOND WORKING PAPERS halshs-00962698, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:gmonwp:halshs-00962698
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00962698
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00962698/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcelin Joanis, 2011. "The road to power: partisan loyalty and the centralized provision of local infrastructure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 117-143, January.
    2. Shawn Cole, 2009. "Fixing Market Failures or Fixing Elections? Agricultural Credit in India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 219-250, January.
    3. Dahlberg, Matz & Johansson, Eva, 2002. "On the Vote-Purchasing Behavior of Incumbent Governments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 27-40, March.
    4. Jean-Paul Azam, 2006. "The Paradox of Power Reconsidered: A Theory of Political Regimes in Africa," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 15(1), pages 26-58, March.
    5. Banerjee, Abhijit & Somanathan, Rohini, 2007. "The political economy of public goods: Some evidence from India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 287-314, March.
    6. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    7. Akramov, Kamiljon T. & Asante, Felix Ankomah, 2008. "Decentralization and local public services in Ghana: Do geography and ethnic diversity matter?," GSSP working papers 16, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    8. Howard R. Bowen, 1943. "The Interpretation of Voting in the Allocation of Economic Resources," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 58(1), pages 27-48.
    9. Hirshleifer,Jack, 2001. "The Dark Side of the Force," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521804127, September.
    10. Case, Anne, 2001. "Election goals and income redistribution: Recent evidence from Albania," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 405-423, March.
    11. World Bank, 2008. "Ghana - Public Expenditures Review : Rural Water and Sanitation Sector," World Bank Publications - Reports 7977, The World Bank Group.
    12. Schady, Norbert R., 1999. "Seeking votes - the political economy of expenditures by the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES), 1991-95," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2166, The World Bank.
    13. Levitt, Steven D & Snyder, James M, Jr, 1997. "The Impact of Federal Spending on House Election Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 30-53, February.
    14. Joan Esteban & József Sákovics, 2008. "A Theory of Agreements in the Shadow of Conflict: The Genesis of Bargaining Power," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 227-252, November.
    15. Banful, Afua Branoah, 2010. "Do formula-based intergovernmental transfer mechanisms eliminate politically motivated targeting?: Evidence from Ghana," GSSP policy notes 1, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Banful, Afua Branoah, 2011. "Do formula-based intergovernmental transfer mechanisms eliminate politically motivated targeting? Evidence from Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 380-390, November.
    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. Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai & Sam Hickey, 2014. "Rethinking the politics of development in Africa? How the 'political settlement' shapes resource allocation in Ghana," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series esid-038-14, GDI, The University of Manchester.

    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. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12069 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5746 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Pierre André & Sandrine Mesplé-Somps, 2013. "Sitting on the fence: Pork-barrels and democratization under threat of conflict. The case of Ghana, 1996 - 2004," THEMA Working Papers 2013-24, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/12022 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. André, Pierre & Mesplé-Somps, Sandrine, 2011. "The Allocation of Public Goods and National Elections in Ghana," MPRA Paper 29873, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Chau, Nancy H. & Liu, Yanyan & Soundararajan, Vidhya, 2017. "Political activism as a determinant of clientelistic transfers: Evidence from an Indian public works program:," IFPRI discussion papers 1700, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    7. Briggs, Ryan C., 2021. "Power to which people? Explaining how electrification targets voters across party rotations in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    8. Emilie Caldeira, 2012. "Does the System of Allocation of Intergovernmental Transfers in Senegal Eliminate Politically Motivated Targeting?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(2), pages 167-191, March.
    9. Jean-Francois Maystadt & Muhammad Kabir Salihu, 2015. "National or political cake?," Working Papers 100756558, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    10. Das, Ritanjan & Dey, Subhasish & Neogi, Ranjita, 2021. "Across the stolen Ponds: The political geography of social welfare in rural eastern India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    11. Chau, Nancy H. & Liu, Yanyan & Soundararajan, Vidhya, 2021. "Political activism as a determinant of strategic transfers: Evidence from an indian public works program," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    12. Kauder, Björn & Potrafke, Niklas & Reischmann, Markus, 2016. "Do politicians reward core supporters? Evidence from a discretionary grant program," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 39-56.
    13. Cazor Katz, Andre & Acuña, Hector & Carrasco, Diego & Carrasco, Martín, 2017. "Transferencias como Canal de Ventaja Electoral: El Caso de Chile [Discretionary Government Transfers to Catch Votes: The Case of Chile]," MPRA Paper 83668, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Markus Reischmann, 2016. "Empirical Studies on Public Debt and Fiscal Transfers," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 63.
    15. Abel Fumey, 2018. "Intergovernmental fiscal transfers and tactical political maneuverings: Evidence from Ghana’s District Assemblies Common Fund," WIDER Working Paper Series 031, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Linda Veiga & Francisco Veiga, 2013. "Intergovernmental fiscal transfers as pork barrel," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 335-353, June.
    17. Kauder, Björn & Björn, Kauder & Niklas, Potrafke & Markus, Reischmann, 2016. "Do politicians gratify core supporters? Evidence from a discretionary grant program," VfS Annual Conference 2016 (Augsburg): Demographic Change 145509, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Marco Manacorda & Edward Miguel & Andrea Vigorito, 2011. "Government Transfers and Political Support," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 1-28, July.
    19. Elena Jarocińska, 2010. "Intergovernmental grants in Russia," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 18(2), pages 405-427, April.
    20. Kayode Taiwo & Linda G. Veiga, 2020. "Is there an “invisible hand” in the formula-based intergovernmental transfers in Nigeria?," NIPE Working Papers 02/2020, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    21. Mikael Elinder & Henrik Jordahl & Panu Poutvaara, 2008. "Selfish and Prospective: Theory and Evidence of Pocketbook Voting," CESifo Working Paper Series 2489, CESifo.
    22. Albert Sole-Olle & Pilar Sorribas-Navarro, 2008. "Does partisan alignment affect the electoral reward of intergovernmental transfers?," Working Papers in Economics 206, Universitat de Barcelona. Espai de Recerca en Economia.
    23. Marcelin Joanis, 2011. "The road to power: partisan loyalty and the centralized provision of local infrastructure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 117-143, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Public goods; Elections; Politics; Ghana;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • O55 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Africa
    • R53 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Public Facility Location Analysis; Public Investment and Capital Stock

    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:hal:gmonwp:halshs-00962698. 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.