Improving Government Effectiveness Research Articles

Collaborative governance in action: driving ecological sustainability in the Yangtze River basin

Implementing a collaborative governance framework across administrative boundaries is crucial for preserving the Basin’s ecological integrity and mitigating institutional fragmentation. Based on 19 cases of inter-provincial collaborative governance of ecological environment in the Yangtze River Basin of China, this study uses the fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis method to explore the influencing factors and complex causal mechanism of the effect of inter-provincial collaborative governance. The results show that technology empowers relationship driving, institutions reinforce interactive driving, and internal and external interaction driving modes promote collaborative governance. Perceived factors are essential in motivating provinces to participate in collaborative governance. External factors play a hygienic role in collaborative governance, and internal factors play a motivated role. The roles of the two types of factors are separate but complementary. In view of this, government should attention to regional environmental concerns, ensuring consistent alignment of internal and external factors and fostering synergies to improve governance effectiveness.

The impact of anti-organized crime on business environment: Evidence from China's anti-Mafia campaign

This paper investigates the impact of China's 2018–2020 anti-Mafia campaign on the business environment. Using a novel dataset on organized crime prosecutions across China's prefecture-level cities and above, we find that the anti-Mafia campaign significantly improved the overall business environment. Probing the mechanisms, we show that the anti-Mafia policy enhanced the business environment through four key channels: increasing international trade and investment, bolstering domestic commercial activities, improving government effectiveness, and promoting public safety. Our findings pass a battery of robustness checks. We contribute to studies on organized crime economics and highlight the need for continued efforts to combat the Mafia.

Impact of Corporate Governance Mechanisms on Firm Performance in Uganda

Purpose: The aim of the study was to assess the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on firm performance in Uganda. Methodology: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries. Findings: The impact of corporate governance mechanisms on firm performance is a complex area of study, with various findings indicating both positive and negative effects. Overall, strong corporate governance mechanisms, including board independence, CEO duality, ownership structure, and audit quality, are generally associated with improved firm performance. These mechanisms enhance transparency, accountability, and strategic decision-making within the organization, leading to better financial outcomes, increased shareholder value, and reduced agency costs. However, the effectiveness of these mechanisms can vary depending on contextual factors such as industry dynamics, legal frameworks, and cultural norms. While some studies highlight the positive relationship between corporate governance practices and firm performance, others suggest potential limitations and the need for continuous adaptation to changing business environments. Implications to Theory, Practice and Policy: Agency theory, stewardship theory and resource dependence theory may be use to anchor future studies on assessing the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on firm performance in Uganda. Practitioners should prioritize enhancing board diversity and independence to improve governance effectiveness. Policymakers should enforce regulatory frameworks that promote transparency, accountability, and ethical behavior in corporate governance practices.

Economic freedom, institutional quality, and manufacturing development in African countries

ABSTRACT The study examines the long and short-run impact of different explanatory variables on manufacturing development the time span from 1996 to 2021. The results indicated that economic freedom, FDI inflows, financial development, political instability, corruption control, government effectiveness, the rule of law, voice and accountability, and regulatory qualities significantly expand industrialization at the 1% level in the short-run, whereas they significantly reduced industrialization at the 1% level in the long run. African manufacturing transformation is significantly and positively determined by income per capita in the long and short run. The study suggests that policy measures must be taken to combat corruption and improve government effectiveness to achieve manufacturing growth. Maintaining a sound individual and whole institutional quality is very crucial for manufacturing development in the short run.

A comparative study of earthquake disaster management laws between USA and Indonesia.

The findings of this study are expected to serve as evaluation material and to improve government effectiveness in dealing with natural disasters.

An evolutionary game-based simulation study of a multi-agent governance system for smart senior care services in China

BackgroundThe competing interests of the government, smart senior care technology service providers, and older adults have led to a serious fragmentation of governance in China. This study aims to identify the collaboration mechanisms and evolutionary stabilization strategies for these agents.MethodsAn evolutionary game model is developed to analyze the strategic decisions made by the government, smart senior care technology service providers, and older adults. A sensitivity analysis is conducted using data from Anhui Province, China, to verify the effects of relevant parameters on the strategy decisions of each agent.ResultsThe results of the simulation and sensitivity analysis indicated that, first, despite changes in the initial willingness values of the tripartite agents, the system eventually converges on 1. Second, the collaboration mechanism of the tripartite agents in the smart senior care system is related to government incentives, penalties, and subsidies, smart senior care service costs, and the additional benefits provided to smart senior care technology service providers.ConclusionThe strategy decisions of the government, providers, and older adults interact with each other. To promote collaboration among the tripartite agents and improve governance effectiveness, the government should strengthen the regulations for providers, increase penalties for providers that engage in a breach of trust, provide moderate incentives and subsidies, and control smart senior care service costs.

Fiscal policy and economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Do governance indicators matter?

This study investigated the linkage between fiscal policy-governance indicators interaction and economic growth in 36 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from the periods of 2011-2021 inclusive. The study employed two-step system Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) estimation technique due to its practical relevance in panel data analysis. The data obtained from World Bank and World governance indicator was checked for unit root through the help of Im Pesaran Shin and Levin-Lin-Chu unit-root tests, and the result revealed that data was stationary and safe for further analysis. The result of the study also presented that direct economic effect of fiscal policy is negative and significant in SSA countries. However, the interaction of fiscal policy with governance indicators has positive and significant effect on economic growth. Accordingly, before interacting with governance indicators, a percentage change in fiscal policy leads to a 0.20 percent decline in economic growth of SSA countries. Contrary to this, the interactive coefficient of fiscal policy and government effectiveness (0.019) and interactive coefficient of fiscal policy and corruption control (0.0046) are found to be positive and significant. Further, the finding of the study revealed that fiscal policy-voice and accountability interaction coefficient (0.011) and interactive coefficient of fiscal policy-regulatory qualities (0.014) are positively and significantly affecting economic growth of SSA countries. The policy implication is that policy makers in SSA countries should encourage economic policies that improve government effectiveness, strong corruption control, clean public services and better regulatory qualities.

Are we only all by ourselves? A double-level perspective to cope with the insecurity of the nonstandard gig work model

PurposeThe emerging nonstandard employment (i.e. gig work) makes gig workers face a series of forms of labor insecurity. Prior studies focus on the linkage between gig work insecurity and precariousness. However, how gig workers and platforms jointly handle gig work insecurity has been so far overlooked. To this end, this study aims to explore how gig platforms and workers jointly cope with the insecurity of the gig work model.Design/methodology/approachBuilding upon the JD-R model, this study used a double-level perspective to hypothesize how gig platforms and workers jointly cope with gig work insecurity. Second, 248 questionnaire data were collected from workers who worked for several gig platforms (e.g. Meituan, Eleme, DidiTax, Zhihu and Credamo) in China. Third, the analysis method based on the partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) was employed to test the study theoretical model.FindingsEmpirical findings show that gig workers can cope with gig work insecurity by crafting their work; gig platforms' formalization governance not only reduces gig work insecurity but also helps gig workers address it by more easily crafting their work.Practical implicationsGig workers do always have not enough job resources and motivation to work hard. Gig workers merely rely on job crafting to cope with the insecurity of the gig work model, which is insufficient. Gig platforms should also formalize their current governance mechanisms, which can supplement gig workers' job resources and reduce their job demands so as to help them cope with such gig work insecurity.Originality/valueThese results advance the understanding of the joint roles of gig platforms and workers in addressing gig work insecurity and improve governance effectiveness and value of gig platforms.

Institutional quality and green economic growth in West African economic and monetary union

PurposeThis study examined the how institutions influence green economic growth in the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries with view to contributing to Sustainable development goal of good health and well-being (SDG 3), clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), sustainable cities and communities (SDG11), responsible consumption and production (SDG12). MethodologyThe study made use of data sourced from the Development Indicators (WDI) and Governance Indicators (WGI) from 2002 to 2017 covering the eight (08) WAEMU countries. The study applied the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS), which is robust to the heterogeneity and endogeneity presence, to estimate the long-run parameters of the institutional quality effect on green economic growth. FindingsFindings obtained from the study show that the institution's quality influence differs across the countries of study. The findings implication is that institutional quality enhances green economic growth. In specific terms, institutions level enhances green economic growth in counties such as Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. On the contrary, it however, deteriorates green economic growth in other countries such as Benin and Burkina Faso. ConclusionAgainst this finding, the study recommends that there is the need for WAEMU countries to consider the improvement of institutional framework, making sure that a robust institutional mechanism such as elimination of corruption, improve government effectiveness, strong credibility of government commitments and policies, an efficient judiciary, sound policies and regulations to reach the green economic growth desired level. ImplicationThe findings implication is that good institutional framework such as good governance, control of corruption, political stability and absence of violence among others, are essential factors in promoting green economic growth. The findings highlight the importance of investment in renewable energy and sustainable agriculture as key drivers of green economic growth in the region. These findings have important implications for policymakers in the WAEMU region, as they provide evidence-based insights into the role of institutional quality in promoting sustainable and inclusive economic growth. OriginalityThe study extends the frontiers of knowledge on green economic growth by using green economic growth a new established indicator that makes use of economic and environmental indices to ensure accurate and assessable economic prosperity.

Association of government effectiveness, logistics performance, IT systems and income with COVID-19 mortality

The COVID-19 pandemic has unprecedentedly shaken the public health system worldwide. It has been one of the greatest humanitarian crises faced by all countries, regardless of their economic prosperity. However, some countries have been able to minimize the deaths caused by the coronavirus even in the face of a large number of cases, while others have failed to control the death rate even in a comparatively small number of cases. This study explores possible causes of this disparity using cross-sectional data from 126 countries associated with demography, governance, income level, the extent of ICT maturity and the geographical divide. The results of this study suggest that while government effectiveness is negatively associated with the COVID-19 death rate, the logistics performance of governments is positively linked to the COVID-19 mortality rate. The ICT maturity proxied through online service delivery did not confirm its association with the COVID-19 mortality rate. This study informs that poverty and the location of countries do not necessarily influence COVID-19 deaths. Hence, it behoves governments to focus on improving government effectiveness and putting in place more effective and efficient mobility systems, healthcare supply chains and digital administration to address the global health crisis posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and mitigate its harsh effects, including mortality.

Does Internet Use Affect Citizens’ Perception of Social Safety? A Cross-Sectional Survey in China

Since the advent of the Internet has changed how risk information develops and disseminates, citizens’ risk perception alters correspondingly. Although extant studies have explored the impacts of Internet use on citizens, only a few have focused on citizens’ perception of social safety exclusively. This study examined the effect of Internet use and Internet use frequency on citizens’ perception of social safety with 2017 China Social Survey data. It found that Internet use and Internet use frequency have a significant negative impact on citizens’ social safety perception. Compared to non-users, the probability of perceiving society as very safe decreases significantly by 2.3% for Internet users. Subsequently, this study avoided the endogeneity issues by employing the Bioprobit and CMP methods, and the robustness check adopted propensity score matching methods. In general, it supported results in benchmark regression. The heterogeneity analysis indicated that Internet use had a higher negative impact on citizens in the western region, rural household registration, and middle-aged groups. It suggests that the establishment of a comprehensive mechanism to regulate online information involving governments, Internet industrial organizations, and Internet users may improve governance effectiveness. In addition, education targeting Internet literacy is required to enable a more rational citizen participation on the Internet.

Good democratic governance can combat COVID-19 - excess mortality analysis

Some studies claim that democracy is in crisis during the current pandemic while authoritarian countries better combat COVID-19 because they face no tradeoff between freedom and health. These claims, however, are usually supported by unreliable reported data; furthermore, they often overlook an important variation in government effectiveness that is likely to interact with different political regimes. In this paper, I use as the dependent variable more reliable data, excess mortality, which is available for 152 countries, and analyze the interaction effect between regime type and government effectiveness. The results reveal that democratic countries with higher government effectiveness are likely to reduce excess mortality. Democratic countries thus need not give up freedom; they need to improve government effectiveness to combat COVID-19.

Environmental policy integration and performance: The effectiveness of China's one permit management reform

The increasingly complex environmental governance causes the authorities responsible for implementing environmental policies fragmented. Whether environmental policy integration could improve governance effectiveness remains unclear. This paper investigates the short-term impact of China's One Permit Management (OPM), aiming at integrating existing environmental regulations, on environmental performance. Using unique high-frequency facility-level data and the difference-in-differences-in-differences (DDD) approach, we find that noncompliant facilities reduced emissions after being issued the discharge permit. Specifically, COD, NH3-N, SO2 and NOX declined by 7.75%, 29.88%, 18.21%, and 11.04%, respectively. In addition, the analysis of the heterogeneity of firm size suggests that large firms that interact more frequently with regulators are less affected and the analysis of heterogeneity in the capacity of regions to implement policy integration shows that the effect of policy integration is more significant in eastern regions. The emission reductions of COD, NH3-N, SO2 and NOX achieved by the issuance of pollution permits accounted for 7.72%, 14.66%, 11.31% and 19.89% of the five-year target emission reductions, respectively. Given the prevalence of policy fragmentation, policymakers need to focus not only on how to set goals, but also on how to achieve those goals in a coordinated and coherent manner.

Averting the “resource curse phenomenon” through government effectiveness. Evidence from Ghana's natural gas production

PurposeThe “resource curse phenomenon” has received a lot of attention from researchers; however, there has not been any sound explanation to back this phenomenon since the main reason why natural resource should restrain economic growth instead of boosting economic growth remains unanswered. This paper contributes to literature on “resource curse hypothesis” by examining the role of government effectiveness in influencing the impact of gas resource rent on economic growth.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted the Cobb-Douglass production and incorporated gas resource rent, institutional quality (government effectiveness), inflation and exchange rate as additional variables that influences total output (gross domestic product). The author estimated the empirical form of the Cobb-Douglass production using autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and Toda and Yamamoto (1995) as the main estimation strategies while other time series approaches were used as a robustness check.FindingsThe estimates from the ARDL short-run and the long-run dynamics suggest that the direct impact of gas resource rent on economic growth was positive but not statistically significant. At the same time, the interacting of gas resource rent and government effectiveness showed a positive and statistically significant effect of nearly 0.4123 and 0.8724 on economic growth in the long run and short run, respectively. The results from the Toda and Yamamoto (1995) also indicated that economic growth has a strong influence on gas resource rent while government effectiveness drives economic growth and not vice versa.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings from this study imply that government effectiveness plays a crucial role in averting the “resource curse phenomenon”. Hence, improving government effectiveness and efficiency through minimizing corruption among state institutions would be imperative in curbing the “resource curse phenomenon” in developing countries.Originality/valueThe influential role of government effectiveness on the relationship between gas resource rent on economic growth is examined.

Does digitalization improve government effectiveness? Evidence from developing and developed countries

ABSTRACT This study aims to analyze the effect of digitalization on government effectiveness in developing and developed countries. It uses a panel methodology with data from 138 countries between 2006 and 2016. The results suggest that a government’s use of information and communication technologies (ICT) improves its effectiveness in both developing and developed countries. However, this effect is stronger in developed than in developing countries. Moreover, we find that the effect of aggregate ICT use by individuals, businesses, and government on overall government effectiveness is greater than that of individual use by each individually. The results are robust after several tests (reverse causality, dynamic effect, sensitivity analysis, heterogeneities, and alternative measurements). These results highlight the fact that governments could fully benefit from digitalization by adopting policies that promote access to and use of ICT at all levels of the economy, that is, the government itself, businesses, and individuals.

Does bureaucratic performance vary across authoritarian regimes?

ABSTRACT This article considers the performance of bureaucracies in two authoritarian states located in Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The former has been a consolidated authoritarian regime since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The latter has oscillated between a form of parliamentary democracy and authoritarianism. We examine how the countries’ bureaucracies perform under different systems of governance and find that Kazakhstan is more effective given its relatively stable political context, higher level of professionalism, and greater policy capacity amongst its officials, notwithstanding its consistent authoritarian leadership. When politicians interfere in the work of officials, it results in lower impartiality and constitutional uncertainty. This finding reaffirms previous research (using Quality of Government survey data) which calls for the separation of political and bureaucratic roles as a way of improving government effectiveness and reducing corruption.

Evaluation of the Effects of Urbanization on Carbon Emissions: The Transformative Role of Government Effectiveness

With the rapid economic growth and urbanization, the environment is continuously degrading, and the problem of global warming caused by increasing carbon emissions has been highly highlighted. Utilizing panel data of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries from 1996 to 2018, this study aims to evaluate the effects of urbanization on carbon emissions and explore the transformative role of government effectiveness. To produce more accurate estimates, the approach of the feasible generalized least squares is employed, and the heteroskedastic and correlated errors are considered due to the significant differences among the OECD countries. The results suggest an inverted U-shaped nexus between urbanization and carbon emissions, and for most OECD countries, the enhancement of urbanization is positive to increase carbon emissions. Besides, urbanization positively contributes to government effectiveness. As a transformator, government effectiveness negatively contributes to the effects of urbanization on increasing carbon emissions. That is, with the advancement of government effectiveness, the positive role of urbanization in emitting more carbon dioxide will be transformed to help the OECD countries mitigate carbon emissions. Hence, the findings are informative for policymakers to take effective measures to accelerate the process of urbanization and formulate active measures to improve government effectiveness, thereby decreasing carbon emissions and further mitigating global warming.

Redes de governança colaborativa: explorando o sucesso da governança na conservação em larga escala

Abstract Inclusive and equitable collaboration of actors has increasingly been recognized as an essential element for successful governance in large-scale biodiversity conservation. However, there is still limited empirical evidence of the role of collaboration arrangements in establishing and maintaining governance, especially in megadiverse tropical landscapes. Social network analysis was applied to map the collaborative network between the actors involved in the governance of a mosaic of protected areas in Brazil and test whether the network displayed relational patterns favorable to good governance. The network is dense and diversified, containing a variety of actors and horizontal collaboration arrangements between groups. These structural aspects are consistent with a network promoting inclusive and equitable engagement. The analysis also identified some risks and challenges that provide useful information to improve governance effectiveness.

Network connections within committees and board governance effectiveness

AbstractResearch Question/Issue: The paper studies how network connections within board committees affect corporate governance effectiveness.Research Findings/Insights: Using detailed director biographical data of a large U.S. sample, we find that firms with more connections among compensation committee members exhibit less CEO excess compensation, and firms with more connections among audit committee members exhibit less earnings management. These positive effects of connections on corporate governance are more pronounced when a committee has shorter joint tenure, when the firm's information is more opaque, when the firm's CEO is more powerful, or when external governance is weaker. To address endogeneity concerns, we further exploit exogenous departures of directors and continue to find that connections among committee members lead to more effective governance.Theoretical/Academic Implications: Our paper's findings suggest that network connections among directors improve governance effectiveness. This relation is consistent with sociology views that social connections foster information sharing, opinion exchange, and coordination. Our paper complements previous studies on board connections that mainly focus on whether connections between boards and CEOs impair board monitoring. Our paper also shows that director network connection is an important board characteristic.Practitioner/Policy Implications: Our paper's results lend support to the perspective that director network connections can be valuable to firms. Network connection with other board members is an important part of a director's human capital. Therefore, hiring new directors that are connected to the incumbent members can be beneficial to firms at least in certain settings.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND ECONOMIC GROWTH NEXUS IN NIGERIA: MODERATING EFFECT OF INSTITUTIONAL QUALITY: ARDL COINTEGRATION APPROACH

This paper explores the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth in Nigeria: the moderating role of institutional quality. To accomplish this, the study employs an Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) from (2002Q1–2019Q4) and uses a moderator model to examine the impact of entrepreneurship on economic growth via institutional quality. The resilts show that institutional quality in Nigeria has a positive impact on economic growth. The results also indicate that the interactive effect of institutional quality and entrepreneurship has positive effect on economic growth in Nigeria both in the short-run and long-run. The study illustrate that the productive entrepreneurship is a potent vehicle for promoting long term economic growth in Nigeria. In general, unless institutional quality is introduced to improve the influence of entrepreneurship on economic growth, entrepreneurial activity alone may not lead to desired growth. Furthermore, the study presents a perspective of the role of government in establishing an enabling environment that promotes entrepreneurial activity and, as a result, enhances economic growth in Nigeria. Based on this finding, the study recommends for the implimantation of measures and policies aims at encourageing productive entrepreneurial activities that contribute to economic growth. In addition Government and policymakers should improved the quality of institutions such as improving Government Effectiveness, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Voice and Accountability, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law and Control of Corruption. KEYWORDS: Economic growth, Entrepreneurship, Moderating, Institutional quality.