State Capture and Rent-Seeking in Benin

Account of Benin's economic, social and political development over recent decades, diagnosing it's development hindering institutional weaknesses and needed reforms.

This volume offers a thorough account of the economic, social and political development of Benin with a detailed analysis of its critical institution- and development-sensitive areas. It also points to the need for several institutional reforms, whose political economy is carefully examined in the Benin context.Benin is a small, slow-growing economy whose development relies on two sources of rent that are controlled by self-centred elites: cotton export and illegal cross-border trade with Nigeria. Patrimonialism governs Beninese society as a forceful struggle for political power takes place between the oligarchs who control these sources and use them as formidable levers of power. State Capture and Rent-Seeking in Benin argues that this struggle causes the instability and unpredictability of economic policies, resulting in institutional problems that make economic diversification and growth difficult. Based on a thorough account of the economic, social, and political development of Benin, this institutional diagnostic provides a detailed analysis of its critical institution- and development-sensitive areas such as electoral campaign finance, state capture by business and elites, management of the cotton sector, the tax effort, the informal trading between Benin and Nigeria, and the political economy of land reform.