Politics and the geographic allocation of public funds in a semi-democracy: The case of Ghana, 1996-2004

Pierre André () and Sandrine Mesplé-Somps

No 6, Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Berlin 2011 from Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics

Abstract: The body of literature on purely democratic countries can sometimes fail to explain the behavior of government in semi-democratic African countries. Empirical and theoretical political economic papers and that public funds target ruling party supporters and swing districts. Our results, however, suggest that the opposite was true of Ghana. We observe that pro-government districts received less public investment when the NDC was in power. We posit that this nding is partially driven by the government's will to curry favor with opposition politicians. Indeed, in addition to pursuing its electoral objectives, the government of an emerging democracy may fear political instability and keep the lid on potential unrest by bargaining with opposition leaders. Our analysis also shows that, when controlling for votes and other covariates (including wealth, urbanization and density), public goods allocation is not driven by ethnic group targeting either.

Keywords: Public goods; Elections; Politics; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 O55 R53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-cdm, nep-dev, nep-pbe and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Politics and the geographic allocation of public funds in a semi-democracy. The case of Ghana, 1996-2004 (2011)
Working Paper: Politics and the geographic allocation of public funds in a semi-democracy. The case of Ghana, 1996 - 2004 (2010)
Working Paper: Politics and the geographic allocation of public funds in a semi-democracy. The case of Ghana, 1996 - 2004 (2010)
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