TY  - JOUR
AU  - Casey, Katherine
AU  - Glennerster, Rachel
AU  - Miguel, Edward
TI  - Healing the Wounds: Learning from Sierra Leone's Post-war Institutional Reforms
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18368
PY  - 2012
Y2  - September 2012
DO  - 10.3386/w18368
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18368
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18368.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Katherine Casey
Stanford University
Graduate School of Business
655 Knight Way
Stanford, CA 94305
E-Mail: kecasey@stanford.edu

Rachel Glennerster
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
22 Whitehall 
London, SW1A 2EG 
United Kingdom
E-Mail: rachel.glennerster@fcdo.gov.uk

Edward Miguel
Department of Economics
University of California, Berkeley
530 Evans Hall #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720
Tel: 510/642-7162
Fax: 510/642-6615
E-Mail: emiguel@econ.berkeley.edu
M1  - published as Katherine Casey, Rachel Glennerster, Edward Miguel. "Healing the Wounds: Learning from Sierra Leone's Postwar Institutional Reforms," in Sebastian Edwards, Simon Johnson, and David N. Weil, editors, "African Successes, Volume I: Government and Institutions" University of Chicago Press (2016)

M3  - presented at "African Development Successes Conference", July 18-20, 2010
AB  - While its recent history of civil war, chronic poverty and corrupt governance would cause many to dismiss Sierra Leone as a hopeless case, the country's economic and political performance over the last decade has defied expectations.  We examine how several factors--including the legacy of war, ethnic diversity, decentralization and community-driven development (CDD)--have shaped local institutions and national political dynamics.  The story that emerges is a nuanced one: war does not necessarily destroy the capacity for local collective action; ethnicity affects residential choice, but does not impede local public goods provision; while politics remain heavily ethnic, voters are willing to cross ethnic boundaries when they have better information about candidates; decentralization can work even where capacity is limited, although the results are mixed; and for all of its promise, CDD does not appear to transform local institutions nor social norms.  All of these findings are somewhat "unexpected," but they are quite positive in signaling that even one of the world's poorest, most violent and ethnically diverse societies can overcome major challenges and progress towards meaningful economic and political development.
ER  -