Details

Subject(s)

• Economic development—Benin [Browse]
• Institutional economics—Benin [Browse]
• Benin—Economic policy [Browse]

Editor

• Bourguignon, François [Browse]

Series

The Institutional Diagnostic Project

Summary note

Benin is a small, slow-growing economy whose development relies on two sources of rent that are controlled by self-centred elites: cotton export and illegal cross-border trade with Nigeria. Patrimonialism governs Beninese society as a forceful struggle for political power takes place between the oligarchs who control these sources and use them as formidable levers of power. State Capture and Rent-Seeking in Benin argues that this struggle causes the instability and unpredictability of economic policies, resulting in institutional problems that make economic diversification and growth difficult. Based on a thorough account of the economic, social, and political development of Benin, this institutional diagnostic provides a detailed analysis of its critical institution- and development-sensitive areas such as electoral campaign finance, state capture by business and elites, management of the cotton sector, the tax effort, the informal trading between Benin and Nigeria, and the political economy of land reform.

Notes

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 13 Nov 2023).

Contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Maps
• List of Tables
• List of Boxes
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Warning
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Institutional Diagnostic Project: Preamble
• The Institutional Diagnostic Project Presentation
• I 'Institutions Matter'
• II How Institutions Matter in Development Policy Today: The Role of 'Governance'
• III Searching for Evidence on the Relationship between the Quality of Institutions and Development
• IV Institutional Diagnostic as a New Approach to Institutions and Development
• V Structure of Case Studies
• References
• Part I An Overview of Economic and Institutional Constraints on Benin's Development
• 1 The Spatial, Historical, and Socio-political Context
• I Geography and History
• A Geography
• B Deep Historical Legacies
• II Ethnicity
• III Landmarks in the Post-1944 Political History
• A Political Instability before and after Independence: 1944-1972
• B A Marxist-Leninist Revolution: 1972-1990
• C Democratic Renewal: 1990-2016
• D From 2016 Onwards: Towards a Regime Change?
• IV Characterising the Political System of Benin: Patrimonialism with Multiple Oligarchs
• A General Considerations
• B The Case of Benin
• V Conclusion
• 2 Exploring the Reasons behind Modest Economic Performance
• I Growth Performance Over Time and Changing Economic Context
• A Aggregate Growth
• 1 1960-1972: Post-Independence Instability
• 2 1973-1989: The Socialist Experience, the Ensuing Financial Crisis, and the Structural Adjustment Programme
• 3 1990 and after: Market-Oriented Reforms but Modest Overall Growth
• B Growth and Structural Change
• II Leading Real Sectors: Bchievements and Challenges
• A Cross-Border Trade with Nigeria.
• B Cotton Exports: Historical Heritage and Changing Organisational Structure
• C Non-cotton Agricultural Exports: An Ancillary Driver of Growth?
• 1 Financial Constraints
• 2 Physical Infrastructure
• III The Foreign Trade Context
• A Parallelism between Exports and Imports
• B Composition of Exports and Imports of Goods and Services
• C Real Exchange Rates
• IV Financing the Economy and the Public Sector
• A Consumption Bias in Aggregate Spending
• B Efficiency versus Resource Constraint in the Public Sector
• 1 Revenues
• 2 Expenditures
• 3 Financial Balance
• C Foreign Assistance Dependency
• V Benin's Social Challenges
• A Demographic Pressure
• B Persistence of Poverty and Rising Inequality
• 1 Poverty Incidence
• 2 Inequality
• C Literacy and Education
• 1 Literacy
• 2 Primary Education
• 3 Post-Primary Education
• 4 Education-Sector Reforms
• D Health-Care Issues
• VI Conclusion
• Appendix 1 Growth Accounting
• Appendix 2 Contribution to Benin's GDP of Re-exports to Nigeria
• Appendix 3 Effects of Shocks in Nigeria on Benin's GDP
• 3 Quality of Institutions: Lessons from Quantitative and Qualitative Evidence
• I Benin's Institutional Quality in Aninternational Perspective
• A Benchmarking Benin against Neighbouring Countries
• B Benchmarking Benin against Better-Performing Developing Countries
• C Conclusion on International Comparison
• II A Survey of Experts' Opinions on Benin's Institutional Quality
• A Methodology
• 1 The Format of the Questionnaire
• 2 Sampling
• 3 Survey Implementation
• B Empirical Results
• 1 Perceived Institutional Constraints by Broad Areas of Functioning of Institutions
• 2 Interactions between Formal and Informal Institutions
• 3 In-Depth Perceptions of the Quality of Institutions in Benin
• 4 Perceived Weaknesses of Institutions.
• 5 Perceived Strengths of Institutions
• 6 Perceived Opinion on Recent Reforms
• 7 Response Heterogeneity
• C The Main Lessons from the Opinion Survey: Summary
• III Institutional Implications of 'Growthdiagnostics' and Similar Exercises
• A The World Bank 2008 Growth Diagnostic
• 1 Poor Quality of Infrastructure
• 2 High Risks on Return Appropriation: The Tax Issue
• 3 Poor Quality of Human Capital
• B The 2016 IMF Growth Diagnostic
• C The World Bank 2017 Systematic Country Diagnostic
• D The 2009-2016 World Bank Enterprise Surveys
• IV Conclusion
• Appendix
• Part II A Deeper Investigation of Some Keysectors and Institutions: Introduction to the Thematic Studies
• 4 Campaign Finance and State Capture
• I Introduction
• II Theory and Testable Hypotheses
• III Data and Methodology
• A Descriptive Statistics on Campaign Funding
• IV Results
• A Contracts between Firms and Politicians
• B Contracts between Politicians and Voters
• C Political Uncertainty and Firms' Strategic Decision-Making
• V Discussion and Conclusion
• Discussion of 'Campaign Finance and State Capture'
• I Networks
• II Firm Networks
• III Politician Networks
• 5 The Cotton Sector: History of a Capture
• II Analytical Framework
• A Organisation of the Cotton Sector
• B External Factors
• 1 Understanding the Fluctuations in World Cotton Prices
• 2 Welfare Impact of Cotton Price Fluctuation
• C Domestic Factors
• III Historical Background of Cotton in Benin: 1641-1960
• A Pre-colonial Period to 1949: Private Mode of Organisation
• B 1949-1960: Private Mode of Organisation but Regulated by the French Government
• IV Understanding the Performance of the Cottonsector in Benin: 1961-2016
• A 1961-1970: A Private Mode of Organisation but Regulated by the Newly Independent State.
• B 1971-1981: A Public Mode of Organisation Regulated by the Marxist-Leninist Government
• C 1981-1991: Public Mode of Organisation - Government Agencies Restructured and Reorganised
• D 1992-1999: Public Mode of Organisation under Liberalisation of Inputs and Ginnery Functions
• E 2000-2007: Private Mode of Organisation by AIC
• F 2008-2012: Private Mode of Organisation and Privatisation of SONAPRA
• G 2012-2016: Public Mode of Organisation Is Back
• H 2016-Present: Private Mode of Organisation Remains
• V Concluding Remarks
• A Institutional Changes and Institutional Weaknesses: Causes and Consequences
• 1 Discontinuity of Regulations, Reforms, Policies, Planned Actions, or Mandates of Cotton Organisations
• 2 Weak Capacity in Public Administration, Colonisation, Donors' Ideology and Their Interests
• B Long-Term Development Issues
• Discussion of 'The Cotton Sector: History of a Capture'
• I Contract with the French Parastatal (1960 to Mid-1970s)
• II Nationalisation of Cotton Gins (Mid-1970s to Mid-1990s)
• III Market-Oriented Reforms (Mid-1990s to Late 2000s)
• IV Post-Market Reforms (Late 2000s to Date)
• 6 The Tax Effort: A Comparison between Sub-Saharan Africa and Benin
• II Empirical Estimation of Tax Effortin Benin: A Stochastic Frontier Analysis
• III The Determinants of Tax Effort: A Logistic Regression Analysis
• IV Tax Policy or Revenue Administration Reforms
• A Tax Policy and Tax Expenditures
• B Tariff Policy and Informal Trade with Nigeria
• C Administration Capacity
• Discussion of 'The Tax Effort: A Comparison between Sub-Saharan Africa and Benin'
• I Overall Point of View
• II Agencification of the Revenue Services in Question
• III Conclusion
• 7 The Political Economy of Land Reform.
• II Competing Projects for Reforming Land Law and Administration (1990-2005)
• A State Ownership, Informality, Semi-formal Arrangements and 'Confusion Management': A Brief Analysis of the Land Sector in the 1990s-2000s
• 1 Generalised Informality, Institutional Weaknesses and Semi-formal Arrangements
• 2 Land Markets, Conflicts, and Insecurity: A High Regional Diversity
• 3 Institutional Bottlenecks before Reforms: Vested Interests in Confusion
• B Adaptation versus Replacement: Competing Attempts at Reform
• 1 The Emergence of the Debate on Land Security in the 1990s
• 2 In Urban Areas, Tool for Commune-Level Land Taxation and Unsuccessful Discussions on Legal Reform
• 3 In Rural Areas, the PFRs and the Draft Rural Land Law: The Search for an Alternative to Land Title
• 4 In the Mid-2000s: The MCA-Benin and the Emergence of a Global Reform Project
• III Expanding Access to Land Title through a Deep Reform of Land Administration: The MCA-Benin-LED Reform (2006-2018)
• A 'Making Land a Marketable Asset': MCA-Benin and Its 'Access to Land' Project (2006-2011)
• 1 The Institutional Component: Updating the Land Law and Negotiating the Agencification of Land Administration
• 2 The Operational Component: Trying to Deliver Legal Documents at a Large Scale
• 3 After the End of the MCA Project (2012-2015): Uncertainties, Reconfiguration, and the Vote on the Code
• 4 The Gradual Implementation of the New Institutional Framework (2016-2018)
• B The Land Code, Its Provisions and Controversies
• 1 The Main Orientations of the Code
• 2 Criticisms of the Code and the 2017 Review
• C Conclusion: Temporality of Projects versus Temporality of Policy Reform
• IV Five Years After the Code: The Reform's Strengths and Limitations
• A A Difficult Negotiation: Promoters and Opponents.
• 1 A Struggle between Two Visions of Problems and Solutions.

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ISBN

• 9781009278485
• 1009278487
• 9781009278508
• 1009278509
• 9781009278522
• 1009278525

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