arXiv subjects

Matata Ponyo Mapon

Publications and source records attributed to Matata Ponyo Mapon.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2021

IMF Programs and Economic Growth in the DRC

At the end of 2012 the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has suspended its financial assistance to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Due to inflationary pressures which occurred in the last quarter of 2016, several decision-makers called for a reopening of a formal cooperation with the IMF. This process was formally completed in December 2019. The restart of IMF programs was greeted with satisfaction by politicians and widely commented in the media. However, recent history shows that the DRC managed to achieve exceptional economic performance, between 2012 and 2016, without being in a formal cooperation with the IMF. Some people wonder whether IMF assistance is a curse for recipient countries? We argue that the underlying problem has nothing to do with accepting or not the IMF assistance, but rather in the ability of policy makers to establish effective leadership and good governance for the development and implementation supporting structural reforms.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2021

Leadership and Institutional Reforms

Large-scale institutional changes require strong commitment and involvement of all stakeholders. We use the standard framework of cooperative game theory developed by Ichiishi (1983, pp. 78-149) to: (i) establish analytically the difference between policy maker and political leader; (ii) formally study interactions between a policy maker and his followers; (iii) examine the role of leadership in the implementation of structural reforms. We show that a policy maker can be both partisan and non-partisan, while a political leader can only be non-partisan. Following this distinction, we derive the probability of success of an institutional change, as well as the nature of the gain that such a change would generate on the beneficiary population. Based on the restrictions of this simple mathematical model and using some evidence from the Congolese experience between 2012 and 2016, we show that institutional changes can indeed benefit the majority of the population, when policy makers are truly partisan.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2019

The artefact of the Natural Resources Curse

This paper reexamines the validity of the natural resource curse hypothesis, using the database of mineral exporting countries. Our findings are as follows: (i) Resource-rich countries (RRCs) do not necessarily exhibit poor political, economic and social performance; (ii) RRCs that perform poorly have a low diversified exports portfolio; (iii) In contrast, RRCs with a low diversified exports portfolio do not necessarily perform poorly. Then, we develop a model of strategic interaction from a Bayesian game setup to study the role of leadership and governance in the management of natural resources. We show that an improvement in the leadership-governance binomial helps to discipline the behavior of lobby groups (theorem 1) and generate a Pareto improvement in the management of natural resources (theorem 2). Evidence from the World Bank Group's CPIA data confirms the later finding. Our results remain valid after some robustness checks.

econ.GN↗