Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP16256
Authors: Tim Besley; Torsten Persson; Chris Dann
Abstract: This paper provides an overview of a ten-year update of the empirical claims in Besley and Persson's (2011) `Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters'. In addition to assembling a new dataset that covers many of the themes in the book, we recreate almost all charts and tables with better data for a cross-section ten years later. New data further permitted the collection of additional variables relevant to the emerging literature in political economy on norms and values, in addition to measuring `collective capacity' as our third dimension of state capacity. We also make comparisons of state effectiveness over time, using the panel structure of the dataset, and perform extensions that empirically identify state spaces and development clusters via unsupervised statistical learning techniques.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: D72; E62; H11; H20; P14
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| higher fiscal capacity (E62) | legal capacity (K36) |
| collective capacity (A30) | state effectiveness (H11) |
| political violence (P26) | state capacity (H11) |
| political violence (P26) | economic development (O29) |