全球智库信息集成服务系统(G2TT): Isolated Capital Cities and Misgovernance: Theory and Evidence

G2TT

来源类型	Working Paper
规范类型	报告
DOI	10.3386/w19028
来源ID	Working Paper 19028
	Isolated Capital Cities and Misgovernance: Theory and Evidence
	Filipe R. Campante; Quoc-Anh Do; Bernardo V. Guimaraes
发表日期	2013-05-09
出版年	2013
语种	英语
摘要	Motivated by a novel stylized fact - countries with isolated capital cities display worse quality of governance - we provide a framework of endogenous institutional choice based on the idea that elites are constrained by the threat of rebellion, and that this threat is rendered less effective by distance from the seat of political power. In established democracies, the threat of insurgencies is not a binding constraint, and the model predicts no correlation between isolated capitals and misgovernance. In contrast, a correlation emerges in equilibrium in the case of autocracies. Causality runs both ways: broader power sharing (associated with better governance) means that any rents have to be shared more broadly, hence the elite has less of an incentive to protect its position by isolating the capital city; conversely, a more isolated capital city allows the elite to appropriate a larger share of output, so the costs of better governance for the elite, in terms of rents that would have to be shared, are larger. We show evidence that this pattern holds true robustly in the data. We also show that isolated capitals are associated with less power sharing, a larger income premium enjoyed by capital city inhabitants, and lower levels of military spending by ruling elites, as predicted by the theory.
主题	Microeconomics ; Welfare and Collective Choice ; Regional and Urban Economics ; Regional Economics
URL	https://www.nber.org/papers/w19028
来源智库	National Bureau of Economic Research (United States)
引用统计
资源类型	智库出版物
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/576702
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Filipe R. Campante,Quoc-Anh Do,Bernardo V. Guimaraes. Isolated Capital Cities and Misgovernance: Theory and Evidence. 2013.