Why Do So Many Underdeveloped Economies Seem Not to Develop? The Impact of Public Social Governance

Abstract

In the early 1980s, over 2.1 billion people were facing a hopeless future by getting by on less than $3.10 a day (and sometimes as little as $1.90 a day) despite living in a world of over-abundance. Given the impact of indigence on world stability and human solidarity, winning the fight against poverty is a critical issue for all people, whether rich or poor. Using proxies representing social and political pressures faced by governments striving toward development, we measure the impact of public governance on poverty decrease. We explain why most poor countries seem to be failing in their development initiatives, or, at the very least, are caught in an impasse. Using a sample of 177 countries in 2016, regressions are run to test the impact of public social governance on poverty. On average, poor countries underperform compared to rich ones. We suggest why weak public social governance can be a serious impediment to national development.