IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wbk/wbrwps/1550.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Governance and returns on investment : an empirical investigation

Author

Listed:
  • Isham, Jonathan
  • Kaufmann, Daniel
  • Pritchett, Lant

Abstract

Using data from the World Bank's Operations Evaluation Department, the authors examine the link between the performance of Bank-financed projects and various indicators of country governance. They find that: there is a strong statistical, and possibly casual, link between civil liberties and project performance. After controlling for a variety of determinants of project performance, they find that in countries with the best civil liberties records projects have an economic rate of return between 8 and 22 percentage points higher than the rate of return in countries with the worst civil liberties. (The average rate of return in the sample is 6 percent). The typical political regime (whether authoritarian or democratic) and the status of more purely political liberties do not appear to significantly affect project performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Isham, Jonathan & Kaufmann, Daniel & Pritchett, Lant, 1995. "Governance and returns on investment : an empirical investigation," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1550, The World Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:1550
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/1995/11/01/000009265_3961019154124/Rendered/PDF/multi_page.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Income distribution, political instability, and investment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1203-1228, June.
    2. Abbas Pourgerami, 1988. "The political economy of development: A cross-national causality test of development-democracy-growth hypothesis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 123-141, August.
    3. Paul, Samuel, 1992. "Accountability in public services: Exit, voice and control," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 20(7), pages 1047-1060, July.
    4. Alesina, Alberto & Özler, Sule & Roubini, Nouriel & Swagel, Phillip, 1996. "Political Instability and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 189-211, June.
    5. Isham, Jonathan & Narayan, Deepa & Pritchett, Lant, 1995. "Does Participation Improve Performance? Establishing Causality with Subjective Data," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 9(2), pages 175-200, May.
    6. Scully, Gerald W, 1988. "The Institutional Framework and Economic Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(3), pages 652-662, June.
    7. Shea, J., 1993. "Instrument Relevance in Linear Models: A Simple Measure," Working papers 9312, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    8. Greene, William H, 1981. "On the Asymptotic Bias of the Ordinary Least Squares Estimator of the Tobit Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(2), pages 505-513, March.
    9. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto, 1994. "The Political Economy of Growth: A Critical Survey of the Recent Literature," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 8(3), pages 351-371, September.
    10. 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. Olaf J de Groot & Carlos Bozzoli & Anousheh Alamir & Tilman Brück, 2022. "The global economic burden of violent conflict," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(2), pages 259-276, March.
    2. Claessens,Stijn & Klingebiel,Daniela M. H. & Schmukler,Sergio L., 2003. "Government bonds in domestic and foreign currency: the role of macroeconomic and institutional factors," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2986, The World Bank.
    3. Abdur Chowdhury & Paolo Garonna, 2007. "Effective Foreign Aid, Economic Integration and Subsidiarity: Lessons from Europe," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 0346, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    4. Joachim Von Braun, 2005. "Agricultural economics and distributional effects," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 32(s1), pages 1-20, January.
    5. Grootaert, Christiaan, 1999. "Social capital, houshold welfare, and poverty in Indonesia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2148, The World Bank.
    6. Nuruddeen USMAN & Martins.O. APINRAN, 2019. "The Impact of Aid and Macroeconomic Policy on Growth in Nigeria: A Bounds Testing Approach," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 9(5), pages 581-603, May.
    7. Augusto de la Torre & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2007. "Emerging Capital Markets and Globalization : The Latin American Experience," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7187, December.
    8. Sudeshna Ghosh Banerjee & Michael C. Munger, 2004. "Move to markets? An empirical analysis of privatization in developing countries," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(2), pages 213-240.
    9. Ertan Tosun & Dervis Kirikkaleli & Okan Veli Safakli, 2020. "An Isolated Island Economy Analysis on the Effectiveness of Foreign Aid: TRNC," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, June.
    10. Dorothy McCormick, 2008. "China & India as Africa's New Donors: The Impact of Aid on Development," Review of African Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(115), pages 73-92, March.
    11. Ulrich Eydam & Florian Leupold, 2023. "What is it good for? On the Inflationary Effects of Military Conflicts," CEPA Discussion Papers 65, Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
    12. Pritchett, Lant, 1996. "Mind your P's and Q's : the cost of public investment is not the value of public capital," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1660, The World Bank.
    13. Lee, Kye Woo & Hong, Minji, 2018. "Relative Effectiveness of Various Development Finance Flows: A Comparative Study," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 40(3), pages 91-115.
    14. Augusto de la Torre & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2007. "Emerging Capital Markets and Globalization : The Latin American Experience," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 7187, September.
    15. Bobae Noh & Almas Heshmati, 2021. "Does official development assistance affect a donor’s exports? South Korea’s case," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(10), pages 1-28, October.

    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. Ignacio Amate-Fortes & Almudena Guarnido-Rueda & Agustin Molina-Morales, 2017. "Economic and Social Determinants of Human Development: A New Perspective," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(2), pages 561-577, September.
    2. Fabrizio Carmignani, 2001. "Theory and Evidence on the Political Economy of Growth," Working Papers 33, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2001.
    3. Polimeni, John M. & Iorgulescu Polimeni, Raluca & Trees, W. Scott, 2007. "Extending The Augmented Solow Growth Model To Explain Transitional Economies," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 4(1), pages 65-76, March.
    4. Emery, Thomas & Mélon, Lela & Spruk, Rok, 2023. "Does e-procurement matter for economic growth? Subnational evidence from Australia," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 318-334.
    5. Perotti, Roberto, 1996. "Growth, Income Distribution, and Democracy: What the Data Say," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 149-187, June.
    6. Mehmet Asutay & Noor Zahirah Mohd Sidek, 2021. "Political economy of Islamic banking growth: Does political regime and institutions, governance and political risks matter?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 4226-4261, July.
    7. RAMDE, Fousseni, 2015. "Institution, investissements et croissance dans l’UEMOA: une approche panel VAR [Institution, investments and growth in WAEMU: a panel VAR approach]," MPRA Paper 82417, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 Jun 2017.
    8. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    9. Jian-Guang Shen, 2002. "Democracy and growth: An alternative empirical approach," Development and Comp Systems 0212002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. 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.
    11. 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.
    12. Lisa Cook, 2014. "Violence and economic activity: evidence from African American patents, 1870–1940," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 221-257, June.
    13. Pooja Karnane & Michael A. Quinn, 2019. "Political instability, ethnic fractionalization and economic growth," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 435-461, April.
    14. Demir, Firat, 2006. "Volatility of short term capital flows and socio-political instability in Argentina, Mexico and Turkey," MPRA Paper 1943, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Erdogdu, Erkan, 2013. "A cross-country analysis of electricity market reforms: Potential contribution of New Institutional Economics," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 239-251.
    16. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/o45fqtltm960r11iq437ski90 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Aysan, Ahmet Faruk, 2005. "The Role of Efficiency of Redistributive Institutions on Redistribution: An Empirical Assessment," MPRA Paper 17773, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Mohtadi, Hamid & Roe, Terry L., 2003. "Democracy, rent seeking, public spending and growth," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 445-466, March.
    19. Celal Kucuker, 2003. "Türkiye Ýktisat Kongresi Büyüme Stratejileri Çalýþma Grubu," Working Papers 2003/5, Turkish Economic Association.
    20. Alberto Chong & Luisa Zanforlin, 2004. "Inward-Looking Policies, Institutions, Autocrats, and Economic Growth in Latin America: An Empirical Exploration," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 335-361, February.
    21. Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2005. "Does democracy preempt civil wars?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 445-465, June.

    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:wbk:wbrwps:1550. 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: Roula I. Yazigi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dvewbus.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.