Skip Navigation

Journal of African Economies 2008 17(Supplement 1):110-139; doi:10.1093/jae/ejm032
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Collier, P.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for the Study of African Economies. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

International Political Economy: Some African Applications

Paul Collier

Department of Economics, Centre for the Study of African Economies, Oxford University

Corresponding author: paul.collier{at}economics.oxford.ac.uk

Modern theories of political economy analyze the sources of political power and their uses for economic ends. The key instruments are taxation and regulation. Although international political economy treats states as its unit of analysis, the number of states is endogenous. This is highly pertinent for Africa, which has far more states relative to its population than other regions. Africa's many small states face acute difficulties of supplying the core public good of enforced justice and I apply the new economics of lawlessness developed by Dixit to show the consequences. I argue that due to the difficulties of supplying this key public good from within the state, Africa needs to have more recourse to the international provision: both through inter-state cooperation within the region, and through global provision.

JEL classification: F5


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.