IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mod/depeco/0107.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Quality of government and subjective poverty in Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Massimo Baldini
  • Vito Peragine
  • Luca Silvestri

Abstract

We study the effect of quality of government on subjective poverty across European countries and regions, taking advantage of recently released data on the quality of public institutions at the regional level, and of information on household subjective poverty. In the analysis we try to separate the effects of quantity and quality of public services on perceived well-being, controlling for the size of the local government and for the receipt of in-kind services by each household of the sample. Results suggest that good governance significantly reduces the probability of being subjectively poor, both over the whole population and also among households that are poor in terms of monetary income. We then estimate the greater cost that a family has to bear in order to achieve a given level of welfare, if it lives in a region with inefficient public institutions. Our measure of this inefficiency cost is around 6% of disposable income.

Suggested Citation

  • Massimo Baldini & Vito Peragine & Luca Silvestri, 2017. "Quality of government and subjective poverty in Europe," Department of Economics 0107, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    • Handle: RePEc:mod:depeco:0107
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://155.185.68.2/wpdemb/0107.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.
    3. Stanley L. Engerman & Kenneth Lee Sokoloff, 2002. "Factor Endowments, Inequality, and Paths of Development Among New World Economies," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2002), pages 41-110, August.
    4. Helliwell, John F. & Huang, Haifang, 2008. "How's Your Government? International Evidence Linking Good Government and Well-Being," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(4), pages 595-619, October.
    5. John F. Helliwell, 2006. "Well-Being, Social Capital and Public Policy: What's New?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 116(510), pages 34-45, March.
    6. Sanjeev Gupta & Hamid Davoodi & Rosa Alonso-Terme, 2002. "Does corruption affect income inequality and poverty?," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 23-45, March.
    7. Alberto Chong & César Calderón, 2000. "Institutional quality and poverty measures in a cross-section of countries," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 123-135, July.
    8. 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.
    9. Silvia Camussi & Anna Laura Mancini, 2016. "Individual trust: does quality of public services matter?," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1069, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    10. Rolf Aaberge & Audun Langørgen & Petter Lindgren, 2013. "The distributional impact of public services in," Discussion Papers 746, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    11. Mr. Erwin H Tiongson & Mr. Hamid R Davoodi & Mr. Sanjeev Gupta, 2000. "Corruption and the Provision of Health Care and Education Services," IMF Working Papers 2000/116, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Ravallion, Martin, 2016. "The Economics of Poverty: History, Measurement, and Policy," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190212773, Decembrie.
    13. Klaas de Vos & Thesia I. Garner, 1991. "An Evaluation Of Subjective Poverty Definitions: Comparing Results From The U.S. And The Netherlands," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 37(3), pages 267-285, September.
    14. Jan Ott, 2010. "Good Governance and Happiness in Nations: Technical Quality Precedes Democracy and Quality Beats Size," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 353-368, June.
    15. de Vos, Klaas & Garner, Thesia I, 1991. "An Evaluation of Subjective Poverty Definitions: Comparing Results from the U.S. and the Netherlands," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 37(3), pages 267-285, September.
    16. Theo Goedhart & Victor Halberstadt & Arie Kapteyn & Bernard van Praag, 1977. "The Poverty Line: Concept and Measurement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 12(4), pages 503-520.
    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. Shrestha, Gitta & Pakhtigian, Emily L. & Jeuland, Marc, 2023. "Women who do not migrate: Intersectionality, social relations, and participation in Western Nepal," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    2. Frimpong Boamah, Emmanuel & Sumberg, James, 2019. "The long overhang of bad decisions in agro-industrial development: Sugar and tomato paste in Ghana," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    3. Achille Lemmi & Donatella Grassi & Alessandra Masi & Nicoletta Pannuzi & Andrea Regoli, 2019. "Methodological Choices and Data Quality Issues for Official Poverty Measures: Evidences from Italy," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 141(1), pages 299-330, January.
    4. Miriam Marcén & Marina Morales, 2021. "The intensity of COVID‐19 nonpharmaceutical interventions and labor market outcomes in the public sector," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(4), pages 775-798, September.
    5. Hunter, Benjamin M. & Murray, Susan F. & Marathe, Shweta & Chakravarthi, Indira, 2022. "Decentred regulation: The case of private healthcare in India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    6. Chenhong Peng & Yik-Wa Law, 2023. "How Do Consumption Patterns Influence the Discrepancy Between Economic and Subjective Poverty?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 1579-1604, April.

    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. Massimo Baldini & Vito Peragine & Luca Silvestri, 2018. "Quality of Government and Subjective Poverty in Europe," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 64(3), pages 371-395.
    2. Ahmet Faruk AYSAN & Mustapha Kamel NABLI & Marie‐Ange VÉGANZONÈS‐VAROUDAKIS, 2007. "Governance Institutions And Private Investment: An Application To The Middle East And North Africa," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 45(3), pages 339-377, September.
    3. Yamamura, Eiji & Andrés, Antonio R., 2011. "Does corruption affect suicide? Empirical evidence from OECD countries," MPRA Paper 31622, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Bienvenido Ortega & Antonio Casquero & Jesús Sanjuán, 2016. "Corruption and Convergence in Human Development: Evidence from 69 Countries During 1990–2012," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 691-719, June.
    5. Justina AV Fischer, 2010. "Accounting for Unobserved Country Heterogeneity in Happiness Research: Country Fixed Effects versus Region Fixed Effects," CEIS Research Paper 164, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 28 May 2010.
    6. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk & Nabli, Mustapha Kamel & Veganzones-Varoudakis, Marie-Ange, 2006. "Governance and private investment in the Middle East and North Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3934, The World Bank.
    7. Antonella Rita Ferrara & Rosanna Nisticò, 2019. "Does Institutional Quality Matter for Multidimensional Well-Being Inequalities? Insights from Italy," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 1063-1105, October.
    8. Paleologou, Suzanna-Maria, 2022. "Happiness, democracy and socio-economic conditions: Evidence from a difference GMM estimator," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    9. Qiang Li & Lian An, 2020. "Corruption Takes Away Happiness: Evidence from a Cross-National Study," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 485-504, February.
    10. Armin Falk & Markus Knell, "undated". "Choosing the Joneses On the Endogeneity of Reference Groups," IEW - Working Papers 053, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    11. Jeffrey Frankel, 2014. "Mauritius: African Success Story," NBER Chapters, in: African Successes, Volume IV: Sustainable Growth, pages 295-342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Sébastien Marchand, 2012. "Legal Origin, Colonial Origins and Deforestation," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1653-1670.
    13. Ahmet Faruk Aysan & …mer Faruk Baykal & Marie-Ange Véganzonès–Varoudakis, 2011. "The Effects of Convergence in Governance on Capital Accumulation in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Countries," Chapters, in: Mehmet Ugur & David Sunderland (ed.), Does Economic Governance Matter?, chapter 6, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Tomáš Želinský & Martina Mysíková & Thesia I. Garner, 2022. "Trends in Subjective Income Poverty Rates in the European Union," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(5), pages 2493-2516, October.
    15. Alvar Kangur, 2016. "What Rules in the ‘Deep’ Determinants of Comparative Development?," Research in Economics and Business: Central and Eastern Europe, Tallinn School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology, vol. 8(1).
    16. Kouadio, Hugues Kouassi & Gakpa, Lewis-Landry, 2022. "Do economic growth and institutional quality reduce poverty and inequality in West Africa?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 41-63.
    17. Luciano Nakabashi & Ana Elisa Pereira, 2023. "Factors of production, productivity, institutions, and development: Evidence from Brazil," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(2), pages 1034-1055, May.
    18. Conzo, Pierluigi & Aassve, Arnstein & Fuochi, Giulia & Mencarini, Letizia, 2017. "The cultural foundations of happiness," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 268-283.
    19. Anne D. Boschini & Jan Pettersson & Jesper Roine, 2007. "Resource Curse or Not: A Question of Appropriability," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 109(3), pages 593-617, September.
    20. Jesús Peiró-Palomino & Andrés J. Picazo-Tadeo, 2018. "Assessing well-being in European regions. Does government quality matter?," Working Papers 2018/06, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Quality of government; subjective poverty; minimum income; European regions; poverty line;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations

    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:mod:depeco:0107. 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: Sara Colombini (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/demodit.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.