Citation

Discussion Paper Details

Please find the details for DP9075 in an easy to copy and paste format below:

Full Details   |   Bibliographic Reference

Full Details

Title: National Institutions and African Development: Evidence from Partitioned Ethnicities

Author(s): Stelios Michalopoulos and Elias Papaioannou

Publication Date: August 2012

Keyword(s): africa, borders, development, ethnicity, institutions and regression discontinuity

Programme Area(s): Development Economics and International Macroeconomics

Abstract: We investigate the role of national institutions on regional development in a novel framework. We exploit the fact that the arbitrary political boundaries in the eve of African independence partitioned more than two hundred ethnic groups across different countries subjecting similar cultures, residing in homogeneous geographic areas, to different formal institutions. Using both a matching-type and a regression discontinuity approach we show that differences in countrywide institutional structures across the national border do not explain within-ethnicity differences in economic performance, as captured by satellite light density at night. Despite some evidence of heterogeneity, for the overwhelming majority of groups the relationship is economically and statistically insignificant. While our results do not necessarily generalize to areas far from the national borders, close to the capital cities or to other parts of the world, they suggest that the cross-country positive correlation between formal national institutions and economic development has to be carefully interpreted.

For full details and related downloads, please visit: https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=9075

Bibliographic Reference

Michalopoulos, S and Papaioannou, E. 2012. 'National Institutions and African Development: Evidence from Partitioned Ethnicities'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=9075