| 1. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977, et al.
(författare)
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Government Impartiality and Sustained Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa
- 2016
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Ingår i: World Development. - : Elsevier BV. - 0305-750X .- 1873-5991. ; 83:7, s. 54-69
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many studies suggest that one of the main reasons for Africa’s dismal growth performance over most of the 20th century is its degree of ethnic fragmentation. Yet, there is still insufficient knowledge about whether ethnic diversity necessarily entails large economic costs, or whether the implications of diversity depend, inter alia, on the government’s approach toward the ethnic question. We note that economic growth tends to increase average incomes, but it also affects the income distribution. Then, if growth is accompanied by growing economic inequality, the perception of the impartiality of the government toward different ethnic groups is likely to be important for whether growth can be sustained, or whether sparks of growth will evaporate because of rising political divisions and internal conflicts. In this paper, we study whether the degree of ethnic impartiality in the government’s policies is related to the emergence of sustained growth in sub-Saharan Africa, irrespective of the actual content of the policies. We measure perceptions about the impartiality of the government with survey data from the Afrobarometer covering 20 countries starting in the late 1990 s. Our main definition of sustained growth is when there is a GDP per capita growth rate of at least 2% for at least five consecutive years. Our empirical results suggest that countries whose governments are perceived as impartial are more likely to experience sustained growth. We conclude that in order to ensure economic development, it is not only important to choose the ‘‘right” policies, but also to implement these policies in a fair manner.
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| 2. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977, et al.
(författare)
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Quality of Government and Economic Growth
- 2021
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Ingår i: OUP Handbook of Quality of Government, Eds. Marcia Grimes, Bo Rothstein, Monika Bauhr and Andreas Bågenholm. - Oxford : Oxford University Press. - 9780198858218
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This chapter reviews the literature on the relationship between the quality of government (QoG) and economic growth. As there is limited evidence on the link between QoG narrowly defined and growth, our focus is on the role of related aspects, such as democracy, formal institutions, and cultural norms. We discuss institutional challenges in generating and sustaining high growth rates. We then review the evidence on how QoG, and related aspects of political and economic life, affect growth and pay attention to the relevant channels. We also discuss whether it is harder to sustain growth if it increases inequality. Since a government needs to be both efficient and impartial to support aggregate economic performance, we argue that it is too strict to let QoG be defined as impartiality only.
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| 3. |
- Ahlerup, Pelle, 1977, et al.
(författare)
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Tax Innovations and Public Revenues in Africa
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Development Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0022-0388 .- 1743-9140. ; 51:6, s. 689-706
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We study the effect of two tax innovations – value added taxes (VAT) and autonomous revenue authorities (ARA) – on tax revenues in sub-Saharan Africa. The dataset consists of 47 countries over 1980–2010. We find that VATs have no effect on total tax revenues, neither in the short- nor in the long-run. ARAs lead to higher tax revenues in the short- and medium-run, but the effect dissipates over time. The main conclusion is that tax innovations are not a panacea to overcome the revenue shortages in African countries, but they are helpful in the short- and medium-run.
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| 4. |
- Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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Fiscal Capacity and Government Accountability in Sub-Saharan Africa
- 2011
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Historical evidence from the developed world suggests that the expansion of the mod- ern states’ fiscal capacity (i. e. its ability to tax citizens) eventually led to more democratic and less corrupt governments. Since sub-Saharan African countries are currently in a pro- cess of state building, we study whether a positive effect of fiscal capacity on government accountability prevails in contemporaneous sub-Saharan Africa, too. We conduct the em- pirical analysis with data covering 23 African countries over the 1960-2008 period. The results suggest that fiscal capacity increases government accountability in sub-Saharan Africa.
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| 5. |
- Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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Fiscal Capacity and the Quality of Government in Sub-Saharan Africa
- 2013
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Ingår i: World Development. - : Elsevier BV. - 0305-750X .- 1873-5991. ; 45, s. 92-107
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Historical evidence from the industrialized world suggests that the expansion of the modern state’s capacity to tax eventually led to more democratic and less corrupt governments. Using a dataset that covers 31 sub-Saharan African countries over the 1990–2005 period, we study whether the positive effect of fiscal capacity on the quality of government prevails in contemporaneous sub-Saharan Africa as well. The results provide consistent evidence that within sub-Saharan Africa, fiscal capacity decreases corruption and increases democracy.
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| 6. |
- Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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Political decentralisation and the effectiveness of aid
- 2013
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Ingår i: Globalization and Development. Rethinking interventions and governance. - Abingdon (UK) and New York : Routledge. - 9780415635684 ; , s. 43-72
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)
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| 7. |
- Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 1980, et al.
(författare)
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Public education spending in a globalized world: Is there a shift in priorities across educational stages?
- 2012
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Ingår i: International Tax and Public Finance. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0927-5940 .- 1573-6970. ; 19:5, s. 677-707
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper studies the effect of globalization on public expenditures allocated to different stages of education. First, we derive theoretically that globalization's influence on education expenditures depends on the type of government. For benevolent governments, the model suggests that expenditures for higher education will increase and expenditures for basic education will decline with deepening economic integration. For Leviathan governments, on the other hand, the effects of globalization on public education spending cannot be unambiguously predicted. In the second part of the paper, we empirically analyze globalization's influence on primary, secondary, and tertiary education expenditures with panel data covering 104 countries over the 1992-2006 period. The results indicate that globalization has led in both industrialized and developing countries to more spending for secondary and tertiary and to less spending for primary education.
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| 8. |
- Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 1980
(författare)
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Soft budget constraints and strategic interactions in subnational borrowing: Evidence from the German States, 1975-2005
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Urban Economics. - : Elsevier BV. - 0094-1190. ; 71, s. 114-127
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cooperative federations are usually characterized by the existence of bailout guarantees and intergovernmental transfer schemes. This paper explores whether such features of cooperative federations lead to subnational soft budget constraints using panel data from the German States covering the 1975-2005 period. The methodology is based on the premise that subnational governments' borrowing will exhibit vertical and horizontal strategic interactions if they operate under soft budget constraints. Therefore, a test for strategic interactions in subnational borrowing can be used to infer whether a cooperative federation like Germany is susceptible to soft budget constraints. The results suggest that state borrowing in Germany exhibited horizontal but not vertical interactions during the time-frame of the analysis. This indicates (i) that German States faced soft budget constraints and (ii) that they were more concerned about the likelihood of a bailout than about its volume. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.
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| 9. |
- Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 1980
(författare)
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Tax Decentralization and Public Deficits in OECD Countries
- 2012
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Ingår i: Publius-the Journal of Federalism. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0048-5950 .- 1747-7107. ; 42:4, s. 688-707
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article explores the effect of sub-national tax autonomy and sub-national control over shared taxes on primary deficits with panel data for 23 OECD countries over the 1975-2000 period. The results suggest that sub-national tax autonomy has a U-shaped effect on primary deficits. We find that the "average" country in the sample could increase the fiscal stability of its public sector by reducing sub-national tax autonomy. There is also some indication that sub-national control over shared taxes increases fiscal stability, but we obtain this result only if Belgium and Spain are included in the sample.
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| 10. |
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