Growth and Three-Dimensional Poverty in Sub-Sahara Africa: Does Legislative Democracy Play a Role?
We examine the consequence of legislative competition on the long term impact of economic growth on three-dimensional poverty – including revenue, education and health – in a panel of 32 sub-Sahara African countries. We built time series data as a measure of this poverty from the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Programme. The importance of legislative competition is considered as reversely proportional to the number of seats occupied by the major political party as the Parliament. Results show that Ethiopia's growth reduces poverty thanks both to good government policies and legislative competition; while in the Congo Republic growth increases poverty because of inappropriate governance and anti-poor legislative democracy. Ethiopia's legislative institutions are then considered as a success-story, those of Congo Republic as a failure. We end the paper suggesting legislative institutional reforms capable of reinforcing the impact of global economic growth on poverty in these countries.
Dr Jean Claude Saha (University of Ngaoundere), 2009. Link to related briefing paper.
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Last modified: 31 March 2009