Institutional governance in developing countries, political factors as drivers of institutional change: Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

<b>Abstract</b>: This article provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of institutional dynamism in 38 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, considering institutions as a form of capital. The empirical results show, using the generalized least squares (GLS) method, the maximum likelihood method, the Akaike information criterion, the Bayes information criterion, and the Davidson and Mackinnon (1981) non-nested hypothesis test, that institutional change in SSA countries is fundamentally linked to political factors. Democracy, regime characteristics, autocracy, income inequality, and natural resource rents are fundamental to the institutional capital stock in SSA. However, the cultural environment is a determinant of institutional equilibrium, which is the central element in institutional determination in SSA countries. EL classification: B51, B52; C23; N37