Doctoral Degrees (Economics)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/712

Browse

Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Economics) by browse.metadata.advisor "Black, Philip A."

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Uncertainty and private sector response to economic development policy in post-genocide Rwanda
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2012-12) Nsanzabaganwa, Monique; Black, Philip A.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Economics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This research explored factors underlying successful implementation of development policy. It applied new institutional economic analysis to policy-making processes viewed from the theory, methodology and practice perspectives. Two important results came out of the analysis. Firstly, policy performance depends on private actors’ optimization processes that may or may not end up in conflict with the policy prescriptions. This constitutes a major source of uncertainty. Secondly, getting the policy content right is a necessary but not sufficient condition for success. How policy actions are delivered (implemented by private agents) matters a lot. The policy maker is therefore invited to devise an appropriate mechanism design to that effect. The study proposes the Connectedness model as a normative methodology to minimize uncertainty and increase the likelihood of policy success. The model was inspired by a retroductive inference from some Rwandan living experiments in policy management, which have assisted the country to quickly recover from the 1994 Genocide of the Tutsi and achieve high economic performance in a record time. The Connectedness model defines four actors of a policy process – the politician, the policy expert/bureaucrat, the change manager/consciousness nurturer and the private actor– and describes the nature of interactions between and among them susceptible to guarantee success. The more role players are coordinated, share the same vision and implement consensus building mechanisms, the higher the likelihood for the policy to deliver according to plans. The study proposes three recommendations. Firstly, further research is needed to operationalize leadership, private sector spirit and connectedness institutions as endogenous variables in the new growth theory models. Secondly, new methodologies are to be devised to capture behaviour of individuals and the dynamic nature of policy making processes in macroeconomic modeling. Thirdly, economists and policy makers ought to value more the contribution of social science disciplines such as sociology and psychology in gathering evidence and tools to handle change effectively.