Ethnic Inclusiveness of the Central State Government and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa
Pierre Pecher  1, 2@  , Frédéric Gaspart  3@  
1 : Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille  (GREQAM)  -  Site web
Université de la Méditerranée - Aix-Marseille II, Université Paul Cézanne - Aix-Marseille III, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), CNRS : UMR7316, Aix-Marseille Université - AMU
Centre de la Charité, 2 rue de la Charité, 13236 Marseille cedex 02 -  France
2 : Aix-Maseille School of Economics Aix-Marseille University  (AMSE-AMU)  -  Site web
Aix-Marseille Université - AMU
École d'Économie d'Aix-Marseille - Aix-Marseille School of Economics Aix-Marseille Université - 5-9 Boulevard Bourdet, CS 50498 - 13205 Marseille Cedex 1 - France -  France
3 : Earth and Life Institute  (ELI)  -  Site web
Université catholique de Louvain Croix du Sud 2 / L7.05.05 (de Serres building - B office - 157) B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve BelgiumUniversité catholique de Louvain Croix du Sud 2 / L7.05.05 (de Serres building - B office - 157) B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve Belgium -  Belgique

We estimate the effect of the share of ethnic groups included in the central government on economic growth, distinguishing between democracies and autocracies in a panel of 41 Sub-Saharan African countries over the post-independence period up to 1999. We exploit evidence from the Ethnic Power Relations database that categorises the politically relevant ethnic groups regarding access to state power. We take advantage of the time variation of political participation, using Fixed-Effects, Difference-GMM and System-GMM estimations. Our dynamic-panel and error-correction growth models display a robust positive effect of the proportion of included groups in democracies. Such effect is offset in autocracies, and the difference is often significant. This finding withstands the introduction of various controls and specification checks. Our results support the view that institutional improvements must accompany the promotion of inclusiveness in low-income and weakly-institutionalised countries.


Personnes connectées : 1