Governance quality and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: the dynamic panel model

PurposeThe main objective of this article is to analyze the role of governance quality in influencing the economic growth of 22 selected Sub-Saharan African Countries.Design/methodology/approachThe study applied the panel dynamic Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to analyze the data obtained from the World Bank database over the period from 2002 to 2020.FindingsThe overall finding indicated that the composite governance index has a positive significant effect on the economic growth of the countries; where a unit improvement in the aggregate governance index leads to a 3.05% increase in GDP. The disaggregated result has shown that corruption control and government effectiveness have a negative significant effect on growth performance, whereas, the rule of law and regulatory quality showed a positive significant effect. Political stability and voice and accountability have an insignificant effect on economic growth.Research limitations/implicationsDue to data limitations, this study could not address the whole members of Sub Sahara African Countries and could not see the causal relationship.Practical implicationsThe study suggested a strong commitment to the implementation of policy and reform measures on all governance factors. This may add to the need to devise participatory corruption control mechanisms; to closely look at the proper implementation of policies and reforms that constitute the government effectiveness factors, and properly implement the rule of law at all levels of the government with a strong commitment to realizing it so that citizens at all levels can have full confidence in and abide by the rules of society.Originality/valueEven though there are some studies conducted using conventional methods of panel data analysis such as random effect or fixed effects, this empirical study used more advanced panel dynamic generalized moment of methods to examine the role of improvement in governance quality on economic growth.

Clustering Countries in the Context of the Pandemic and Underlying Conditions

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the state of underlying conditions of countries in terms of health system, sanitary infrastructure, governance, among others. This study aims to classify countries using COVID-19-related variables such as the lethality rate, the contagion growth rate, the stringency index, and underlying conditions of countries directly related to COVID-19 such as access to clean water, hospital beds per 10000 inhabitants, government effectiveness index, population older than 65 years old and economic growth rate. To determine the clusters of a set of countries from all continents (29 from Africa, 35 from Asia, 35 from Europe, 11 from North America, 2 from Oceania and 8 from South America), the k-means partitioning method is used. This approach consists in constructing partitions and evaluate their intra-class and inter-class similarity. Based on the results, three clusters are identified: i. Severely affected countries with high stringency and moderate capacity, ii. Moderately affected countries with moderate stringency and high capacity and iii. Severely affected countries with low stringency but low capacity.

Mediating role of trust in the relationship between public governance quality and tax compliance

This paper examined the mediating role of trust in government on the influence of public governance quality indicators (accountability, political stability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption) on tax compliance in Africa. Cross-country data obtained from 38 African countries for 2015 was used and analyzed using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis. The study found that accountability, political stability, control of corruption, and trust have a significant influence on tax compliance among the sampled African countries, but government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and the rule of law and have insignificant influence on tax compliance. The result of the mediating effects revealed that trust mediates the influence of accountability and political stability on tax compliance in Africa. However, it failed to mediate the influence of government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption on tax compliance among sample African countries. The study offers theoretical insights on the role of trust as a mediator on social exchange relationships from the context of public governance quality on tax compliance. It also implies to the policymakers that building trust is an important mechanism through which the impact of public governance on tax compliance would be more pronounced. The study further calls for replication of its findings in other continents such as the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

What is Right and What is Wrong in the Environmental Governance Model? Environmental Regulations for Improving Environmental Sustainability Ratings

The improper allocation of economic and environmental resources damages the United Nations sustainable development Agenda, which remains a challenge for policymakers to stop the rot through efficient governance mechanisms. The study designed an efficient environmental governance framework by extending the different governance factors linked to the environmental sustainability ratings in the cross-section of 67 countries. The results of the two-regime based estimator show that environmental corruption (regime-1), environmental politics (regime-2), and environmental laws (regime-2) negatively correlated with the environmental sustainability rating, whereas environmental democracy (regime-1 & 2) positively correlated with the environmental sustainability agenda across countries. The government effectiveness and the country’s per capita income both escalates environmental sustainability ratings. The results align with the Demopolis theory, the effective regulatory theory, and the theory of law and politics. The causality estimates show that environmental corruption and government effectiveness causes environmental politics and economic growth. In contrast, environmental democracy and environmental regulations cause a country’s per capita income. The bidirectional causality is found between environmental regulations and environmental corruption on the one hand, while environmental regulations and environmental politics Granger cause each other on the other hand. The results show the importance of environmental regulations in managing ecological corruption and politics across countries. The variance decomposition analysis suggested that environmental politics likely influenced the environmental sustainability agenda, followed by government effectiveness and environmental democracy for the next ten years. The study emphasized the need to design an efficient environmental governance framework that minimizes environmental corruption and enables them to move towards environmental democracy, stringent environmental laws, and regulations. Government effectiveness would mainly be linked to reducing corruption and political instability to achieve clean, green and sustainable development.

Assessing the impact of institutions on economic growth in the BRICS countries

This study examines the impact of institutional quality on economic performance in the BRICS countries for the period from 2002 to 2019. The panel data study was estimated using pooled OLS and a fixed effect model. The study employed six institutional quality indicators (Worldwide Governance Indicators) which included voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence/terrorism, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. The study also controlled for conventional sources of growth, i.e. human capital, physical capital, government expenditure, and inflation. All of these factors were positive and significant in our study. The findings also reveal that government effectiveness, regulatory quality and control of corruption had a positive and significant impact on economic growth in the BRICS countries, whereas other institutional variables turned out to be insignificant.

Drug Legalization, Elite Support, and Government Effectiveness in Latin America

In Latin America, the legalization of drugs—where it occurred—has been driven mainly by elites, although much attention has been placed on public opinion. Considering that efforts toward legalization have been top-down, analysis should concentrate on opinions of the governing elites. To undertake such an analysis, we draw on data from surveys conducted in 18 Latin American parliaments (2012–2018), and we examine elite perspectives on the legalization of all drugs. Results from a Bayesian hierarchical logistic analysis show that in countries where the government is less effective, and where public health problems persist, legislators are less likely to support legalization. We argue that this is due to a lack of trust by MPs in legalization as a solution to trafficking. Wherever those concerned with drug trafficking see the current government as problematic, they will be less likely to support so challenging and complex a policy as drug legalization.

Institutional Quality and Industrial Growth: A Causality Analysis

The research study investigates the causal links between institutional quality and industrial output growth in Nigeria for the periods 1996:Q1-2018:Q4. Institutional quality was delineated into three i.e. economic institution (government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption), financial institution (contract intensive money, lending rate, and financial deepening), and political institution (voice and accountability, and political stability and absence of violence). The study computed the Granger causality test using both the VECM and the Toda and Yamamoto [1] and Dolado and Lutkepohl [2] (TYDL) augmented VAR procedure. The causality result in the short run showed that none of the institutional quality variables have a causal effect on industrial output growth but the feedback was reported. In the long run, a bi-causal relationship was reported from government effectiveness, control of corruption, financial deepening, and voice and accountability to industrial growth, whereas, a one-way directional relation was found running from industrial growth to regulatory quality and political stability & absence of violence. Thus, there is a need for the government to intensify efforts towards improving the extent people can challenge her power and authority because these play significant roles in the development level of Nigerian industries.

Corruption practices and government effectiveness on human capital development in Nigeria

The study assessed the impact of corruption practices and government effectiveness (GE) on human capital development (HCD) in Nigeria between the years 2003 and 2020, Panel data from 2003 to 2020 were obtained from the database of United Nations Development Programme, World Development Indicators and CIP and were analysed using the ordinary least square method which is suitable for the dataset. The study found that corruption has a significant relationship with HCD in Nigeria while the relationship between GE and HCD is not significant. The research implication is that the persistent problem of slow and sometimes stagnant HCD and growth in Nigeria can be reversed by improving GE and by reducing corrupt practices in the country. The paper concluded that corruption practices have a very strong influence on HCD in Nigeria, while the relationship between GE and HCD is insignificant. It was recommended that Nigeria should institute stiffer punishments for offenses bothering on corruption practices. Keywords: Corruption, human capital, development, government effectiveness, Nigeria.

The role of good governance in the race for global vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic

Governments have developed and implemented various policies and interventions to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 vaccines are now being produced and distributed globally. This study investigated the role of good governance and government effectiveness indicators in the acquisition and administration of COVID-19 vaccines at the population level. Data on six World Bank good governance indicators for 172 countries for 2019 and machine-learning methods (K-Means Method and Principal Component Analysis) were used to cluster countries based on these indicators and COVID-19 vaccination rates. XGBoost was used to classify countries based on their vaccination status and identify the relative contribution of each governance indicator to the vaccination rollout in each country. Countries with the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates (e.g., Israel, United Arab Emirates, United States) also have higher effective governance indicators. Regulatory Quality is the most important indicator in predicting COVID-19 vaccination status in a country, followed by Voice and Accountability, and Government Effectiveness. Our findings suggest that coordinated global efforts led by the World Health Organization and wealthier nations may be necessary to assist in the supply and distribution of vaccines to those countries that have less effective governance.