THE IMPACTS OF POLITICAL REGIME AND GOVERNANCE ON GROWTH OF EAST AFRICAN ECONOMIES

Abstract

This paper examine which type of political regime is an appropriate to improve the economic growth in East Africa by investigate the relationship among governance, political regime and economic performance. The Fixed Effect Model (FEM) is estimated using panel data cover the period from 1996 to 2017. The findings of this study show that all indicators of governance have positive and significant impact on economic growth in East Africa. This result also reveals that under the democratic system, the effectiveness of government has strong effect on economic growth more than anocracy and autocracy. The coefficient of autocratic regime is negative and statistical significant which indicates that the efforts undertaken by the government in this region cannot be helpful to enhance economic growth if the country is extremely relies on autocracy as this system weaken the proper allocation of the country's resources. This study suggest that in order to have stable economic growth, the government should maintains peace and order, obeys the rule of law and observe the human rights so as to minimize the authoritarian system, revive the democratic regime, and improve the effectiveness of government towards remarkable economic growth and development in East Africa. KEYWORDS: Political regime, governance, economic growth, East African countries.