Growth, History, or Institutions? What Explains State Fragilityin Sub-Saharan Africa

We explore the determinants of state fragility in sub-Saharan Africa. Controlling for a wide range of
economic, demographic, geographic and istitutional regressors, we find that institutions, and in
particular the civil liberties index and the number of revolutions, are the main determinants of
fragility, even taking into account their potential endogeneity. Economic factors such as income
growth and investment display a non robust impact after controlling for omitted variables and
reverse causality. Colonial variables reflecting the history of the region display a marginal impact
on fragility once institutions are accounted for.