Measuring Government Effectiveness and Its Consequences for Social Welfare in Sub-Saharan African Countries

We introduce a method for measuring effective government and modeling its consequences for social well:ire at the individual level. Our focus is on the experiences of citizens living in African countries where famine remains a serious threat. ha government It is effective, it will be able to deliver goods that individuals need to improve their social welfare. At a minimum, effective governments facilitate reliable access to food for its citizens. We assess this conception of effective government via a multi-level model horn 17 sub-Saharan countries sampled in 2005 by Afrobarometer. We find that citizens who live in regions and in countries with a civil bureaucracy, reliable law enforcement and good infrastructure enjoy higher levels of food security than those who live in regions with weaker institutional penetration