IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucn/wpaper/200501.html

Public investment under ethnic diversity and political uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • Frank Bohn

Abstract

This paper addresses the puzzle that public services in some developing countries, especially in Africa, are poor despite large public expenditure. The intertemporal model here studies a government’s optimal choice between redistribution and public investment. Ethnic diversity and political uncertainty reinforce one another in producing myopic government behaviour which results in underinvestment. Above some critical value of political instability, it is optimal for the government not to invest at all.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank Bohn, 2005. "Public investment under ethnic diversity and political uncertainty," Working Papers 200501, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucn:wpaper:200501
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10197/1288
    File Function: First version, 2005
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Svensson, Jakob, 1998. "Investment, property rights and political instability: Theory and evidence," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(7), pages 1317-1341, July.
    2. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 1997. "Africa's Growth Tragedy: Policies and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1203-1250.
    3. Robinson, James A. & Torvik, Ragnar, 2005. "White elephants," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2-3), pages 197-210, February.
    4. Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Khalid Sekkat, 2005. "Does corruption grease or sand the wheels of growth?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 122(1), pages 69-97, January.
    5. Paul Collier & Jan Willem Gunning, 1999. "Why Has Africa Grown Slowly?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    6. Tabellini, Guido & Alesina, Alberto, 1990. "Voting on the Budget Deficit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 37-49, March.
    7. Devereux, Michael B. & Wen, Jean-Francois, 1998. "Political instability, capital taxation, and growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1635-1651, November.
    8. Cukierman, Alex & Edwards, Sebastian & Tabellini, Guido, 1992. "Seigniorage and Political Instability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 537-555, June.
    9. Beck, Paul J. & Maher, Michael W., 1986. "A comparison of bribery and bidding in thin markets," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-5.
    10. Lui, Francis T, 1985. "An Equilibrium Queuing Model of Bribery," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(4), pages 760-781, August.
    11. Lien, Da-Hsiang Donald, 1986. "A note on competitive bribery games," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 337-341.
    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. Frank Bohn, 2004. "The trade-off between monetary and fiscal solidity : international lenders and political instability," Working Papers 200408, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    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. Frank Bohn, 2004. "White Elephants and the Limits to Efficient Investment," Working Papers 200413, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    2. Bohn, Frank, 2007. "Polarisation, uncertainty and public investment failure," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 1077-1087, December.
    3. Tomasi, Chiara & Le, Quoc Thai & Nguyen, Thi Ngoc Lan, 2025. "Greasing or Grinding? Regulatory context and the productivity effects of corruption: Evidence from Vietnamese SMEs," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Weill, Laurent, 2010. "Is Corruption an Efficient Grease?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 244-259, March.
    5. Andrew Hodge & Sriram Shankar & D. S. Prasada Rao & Alan Duhs, 2011. "Exploring the Links Between Corruption and Growth," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(3), pages 474-490, August.
    6. Erum, Naila & Hussain, Shahzad, 2019. "Corruption, natural resources and economic growth: Evidence from OIC countries," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Weiss, Eli & Rosenblatt, David, 2010. "Regional economic growth in Mexico : recent evolution and the role of governance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5369, The World Bank.
    8. Méon, Pierre-Guillaume & Weill, Laurent, 2010. "Is Corruption an Efficient Grease?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 244-259, March.
    9. Beatrice D. Simo-Kengne & Siphiwo Bitterhout, 2023. "Corruption's effect on BRICS countries' economic growth: a panel data analysis," Journal of Economics, Finance and Administrative Science, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 28(56), pages 257-272, May.
    10. Bohn, Frank, 2003. "A Note on Corruption and Public Investment: The Political Instability Threshold," Economics Discussion Papers 8860, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    11. Fhima, Fredj & Nouira, Ridha & Sekkat, Khalid, 2023. "How does corruption affect sustainable development? A threshold non-linear analysis," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 505-523.
    12. Toke S. Aidt, 2009. "Corruption, institutions, and economic development," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 25(2), pages 271-291, Summer.
    13. Arjona Trujillo, Ana María, 2002. "La corrupción política: una revisión de la literatura," DE - Documentos de Trabajo. Economía. DE de021404, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    14. Finocchiaro Castro ,Massimo & Guccio, Calogero, 2023. "New wine in old bottle: Exploring the Corruption-inefficiency nexus using endogenous stochastic frontier approach," EconStor Preprints 275730, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    15. Gupta, Sanjeev & de Mello, Luiz & Sharan, Raju, 2001. "Corruption and military spending," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 749-777, November.
    16. Lee, Mina & Mutlu, Canan & Lee, Seung-Hyun, 2023. "Bribery and Firm Growth: Sensemaking in CEE and Post-Soviet Countries," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(1).
    17. Fredriksson, Per G. & Svensson, Jakob, 2003. "Political instability, corruption and policy formation: the case of environmental policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1383-1405, August.
    18. Krambia-Kapardis Maria & Stylianou Ioanna & Demetriou Salomi, 2022. "Nonlinear nexus between corruption and tourism arrivals: a global analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 1997-2024, October.
    19. Breen, Michael & Gillanders, Robert, 2017. "Does Corruption Ease the Burden of Regulation? National and Subnational Evidence," MPRA Paper 82088, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Othmani, Abdelhafidh & Slimani, Slah & Bakari, Sayef, 2015. "Les Effets de la Concurrence sur le Commerce Extérieur de la Tunisie : Une Approche du Modèle de Gravité Statique durant la Période 1999-2012 [The Effects of Competition on Foreign Trade in Tunisia: An Approach to the Static Gravity Model in the P," MPRA Paper 80885, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • O23 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Development

    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:ucn:wpaper:200501. 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: UCD School of Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/educdie.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.