Publication

Abstract : The paper derives new empirical evidence on the efficacy of contemporary institutions in offsetting persisting adverse effects of colonial governance on fragility, apart from overcoming fragility. Pre-colonial state experience and initial population abundance tend to reduce fragility but appear weak in reducing the colonial drag. Among contemporary institutions, democracy and political stability apparently increase fragility without alleviating colonial incidence. On the other hand, civil liberty and control of executives seem to reduce fragility but colonial incidence carries over. While economic institutions like government effectiveness and rule of law show both fragility reducing and colonial incidence mitigating effects, protection of property rights does not yield any desired results and control of corruption increases fragility. The perverse behaviour of these institutions can be attributed to fragility trap and stable low-income equilibrium. Strikingly, macro-policies achieve limited success but world economic booms as luck factor do not reduce fragility.