Cournot seminar – Jean-Philippe PLATTEAU (U. Namur)
The 2024/10/11
From 2:00pm to 3:30pm
Event details :
We are pleased to welcome to the first session of the BETA Cournot seminar organised with the support of the FSEG on Friday 11 October at 2:00 pm
Jean-Philippe PLATTEAU (U. Namur)
who will present his paper entitled :
Political liberalisation and State Capture by Business Interests
co-authored with François Bourguignon and Perrin Lefebvre
A widespread view holds that political liberalisation should help improve a country’s governance. Motivated by observations from three African countries, we question this view by relaxing the implicit assumption that the state is immune to the influence of wealthy business leaders. We explore the relationship between political competition and state capture when these leaders can make campaign donations to political candidates and thereby obtain an easier access to the rents of political power. We find that, when the business sector is unified, the risk of state capture increases with the number of candidates, though beyond a certain point it starts to decrease. If the benefits from capture are large enough, however, the relationship becomes unambiguously positive for the range of relevant parameters. When the business sector is broken down into independent firms which must share the rent, state capture is attenuated. And vice-versa if the firms are in harsh competition to appropriate it. Finally, a coalition of corruptible candidates gives rise to a monotonous positive relationship between political competition and capture regardless of the magnitude of state rents. A major policy implication of the analysis is that economic and political liberalisation reforms should be designed sequentially.
Link to the article: https://seafile.unistra.fr/f/752df01b911d43f48a40/
If you would like to meet or have lunch with Jean-Philippe Platteau on Thursday afternoon 10/10 or Friday morning 10/11, please contact Marie Boltz :
m.boltz@unistra.fr
More information on J.P Platteau : https://directory.unamur.be/staff/jpplatte
The year’s programme : https://www.beta-economics.fr/seminaires-cournot-2024-2025/
