Tag Archives: Avner Greif

Nigeria has a shockingly tiny government

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These are figures from an IMF Article IV country report in April of this year:

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The one thing that jumped at me from this table was how little(as a share of total national output) the Nigerian public sector spends. The government barely takes in 10% of GDP in revenues; and spends between 11-12%. Also, for a country at its level of development (and with an economy of its size), Nigeria is weirdly debt free (relatively speaking).

You may be thinking that these figures must exclude state government expenditures — and you are wrong. The 11-12% figure is inclusive of state government expenditures.

In my view, this is a PFM smoking gun on the distortionary effects of oil dependence. Nigerian policymakers appear to be sated with the little revenue they are consuming (as a share of GDP) from the oil sector.

For a comparative perspective, take a look at Kenya’s numbers:

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The Kenyan government gobbles up about a fifth of GDP in revenues, and spends about a quarter. The Nigerian government only takes in a tenth of GPD and spends just a little over a tenth. In addition, the Kenyan government’s debt/GDP ratio is twice Nigeria’s.

General government spending as a share of GDP within the OECD ranges from 33.7% in Switzerland to 58.1 in Finland. The OCED debt/GDP ratio average is 90%.

Back in grad school I took Avner Greif’s economic history class in which he emphasized the importance of organizations for economic development. Societies, big and small, organize out of poverty — by building and maintaining socially-attuned institutions that lower transaction costs. The scope and intensity of organizational capacity therefore matters for economic development (For more see here). It takes a well ordered state.

And from these two tables, it is fair to say that the Nigerian state is underperforming relative to its organizational potential. Perhaps it’s time more people in Abuja started reading Alexander Gerschenkron (however dated this might be).

 

 

institutions, culture and economic development

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I am currently taking a class taught by Avner Greif, an economist/economic historian at Stanford in the tradition of New Institutional Economics. The class introduces ideas about economic development from a perspective that does not get much attention from economists, i.e. culture and its impact on long-run institutional development.

In one of the readings Tabellini argues that:

Well functioning legal institutions breed good values, since legal enforcement is particularly relevant between unrelated individuals. …… better informal enforcement sustained by ongoing relations in a closed network may be counterproductive for values.

Thus, the model predicts that clan based societies develop very different value systems compared to modern societies that rely on the abstract rule of law.

That’s in The Scope of Cooperation.

The paper provides a model of the recursive interaction between good institutions and culture. The scope of cooperation and interaction matters for institutional and economic outcomes. Clannishness, whether in Southern Italy or Mogadishu, is bad for economic development.

But you need a functional state system for people to be able to even contemplate abandoning the insurance scheme that is the clan. The model predicts two steady-state equilibria. Institutionally speaking, you are either Botswana or Chad.

debating africa’s growth prospects

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The Economist has an interesting debate going on about Africa’s growth prospects. The consensus appears to be that structural factors – such as institutions, culture, colonial history and what not – are the main culprits in the tragic tale of African underdevelopment. I agree. Bad governance, the historical accident of colonialism which halted the natural processes of state formation, among other things such as historical low population densities and a culture that mystifies most things are what continue to deter African nations from realizing their full potential.

Gilles Saint-Paul argues that:

“most African countries are trapped at a “low-trust” equilibrium where basic property rights are not enforced and corruption is rampant. Essentially if I do not expect others to fulfil their side of the contract, it is rational for me not to fulfill mine, and transactions eventually disappear“

One of my favorite economists, Daron Acemoglu, adds that:

“The economic problems of African nations are a consequence of their postcolonial institutions, which are themselves the continuation of the precolonial institutions.“

But Lant Pritchett is quick to remind us of the folly of lumping all the sub-Saharan African countries together, pointing out the stark differences between places like Botswana and Somalia or Cote d’Ivoire and Mozambique.

More here.