HUMPHREYS, Macartan; BATES, Robert <br/><br/>
Political Institutions and Economic Policies :  lessons from Africa 

 - Cambridge :  Cambridge University Press,  July 2005 
<br/><br/> Many assert that the economic problems of Africa possess political origins. In particular, they point to a lack of political accountability and argue that economic reform and the renewal of growth depend upon political reform and in particular upon the promotion of competitive electoral politics. Summarizing these arguments, this article formalizes and tests them, using both an African and global sample of data. While it finds support for the view that within Afriac - and globally - competitive institutions are associated with less extractive poliices, it finds no evidence that these institutions have facilitated the implementation of Washington consensus policies