Political institutions and economic growth: can african and south american countries be compared?

Abstract

This paper tries to analyze both theoretically and empirically the association between economic development and the construction of more stable institutions, considering African and South American Countries. In this sense, it will be observed some political rules for the countries of our sample, such as the number of the veto players (actors with veto power), the tenure of its mandate, and the level of polarization. Finally, on the other direction of causality, it will be discussed whether more stable institutions - in its many levels - improve economic growth or not. In order to do this analysis it will be developed an econometric model taken into account the importance of some political variables already mentioned for the economic growth process of the countries chosen.