Tribalism as a Minimax-Regret Strategy: Evidence from Voting in the 2007 Kenyan Elections

Although many studies find that voting in Africa approximates an ethnic census in that voting is primarily along ethnic lines, hardly any of the studies have sought to explain ethnic voting following a rational choice framework. Using data of voter opinions from a survey conducted two weeks before the December 2007 Kenyan elections, we find that the expected benefits associated with a win by each of the presidential candidates varied significantly across voters from different ethnic groups. We hypothesize that decision to participate in the elections was influenced by the expected benefits as per the minimax-regret voting model. We test the predictions of this model using data of voter turnout in the December 2007 elections and find that turnout across ethnic groups varied systematically with expected benefits. The results suggest that individuals participated in the elections primarily to avoid the maximum regret should a candidate from another ethnic group win. The results therefore offer credence to the minimax regret model as proposed by Ferejohn and Fiorina (1974) and refute the Downsian expected utility model.

Explaining Economic Growth: Factor Accumulation, Total Factor Productivity Growth, and Production Efficiency Improvement

This paper examines cross-country patterns of economic growth by estimating a stochastic frontier production function for 80 developed and developing countries and decomposing output change into factor accumulation, total factor productivity growth, and production efficiency improvement. In addition, this paper incorporates the quality of inputs in analyzing output growth, where the productivity of capital depends on its average age, while the productivity of labor depends on its average level of education. Our growth decomposition involves five geographic regions - Africa, East Asian, Latin America, South Asia, and the West. Factor growth, especially capital accumulation, generally proves much more important than either the improved quality of factors or total factor productivity growth in explaining output growth. The quality of capital positively and significantly affects output growth in all groups. The quality of labor, however, only possesses a positive and significant effect on output growth in Africa, East Asia, and the West. Labor quality owns a negative and significant effect in Latin America and South Asia.