Public infrastructure provision and ethnic favouritism : evidence from South Africa
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Date
Authors
Walters, Leone
Bittencourt, Manoel
Chisadza, Carolyn
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley
Abstract
Does coethnicity with the President affect public infrastructure provision in South Africa? Using municipal-level data for 52 district municipalities from 1996 to 2016, we find that municipalities coethnic with the President are associated with higher water infrastructure provision relative to non-coethnic municipalities. Taking into account various political considerations, results show that ethnic favouritism occurs due to ethnic altruism. Our findings remain robust to different specifications of coethnicity thresholds and are applicable to electricity infrastructure provision. Results suggest that in order to minimise ethnic favouritism, politically independent institutions should oversee the allocation of funding and provision of infrastructure.
Description
A previous version of this paper is an ERSA Working Paper, No. 787.
Keywords
Ethnic favouritism, Public infrastructure, South Africa (SA), SDG-17: Partnerships for the goals
Sustainable Development Goals
Citation
Walters, L., Bittencourt, M., & Chisadza, C. (2023). Public
infrastructure provision and ethnic favouritism: Evidence from South Africa. Economics
of Transition and Institutional Change, 31(1), 33–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecot.12325.