Legislative democracy, economic growth and multi‐dimensional poverty in sub‐Sahara Africa
Author(s) -
Saha Jean C.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of international development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.533
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1099-1328
pISSN - 0954-1748
DOI - 10.1002/jid.1779
Subject(s) - legislature , poverty , democracy , virtuous circle and vicious circle , development economics , competition (biology) , politics , economics , political science , economic growth , law , ecology , biology , macroeconomics
Abstract We examine the consequence of legislative competition on the long‐term impact of growth on three‐dimensional poverty in a panel of 32 sub‐Saharan African countries. A measure of this poverty is constructed from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)'s Human Development Index (HDI). Legislative competition is considered as inversely proportional to the proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by the major political party. From the results, one success story emerges—Ethiopia, where growth reduces poverty thanks to virtuous legislative democracy—and one failure story emerges—Republic of Congo, where growth increases poverty because of vicious legislative competition. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.