How Big Is the “Embedded Autonomy” Effect?
Peter Evans summarized the best data he and his collaborators had found in 1995, which showed there really is an embedded autonomy. They had had developed a “Weberianness scale” of governmental bureaucratic efficiency and run regressions on the economic performance of 35 countries. At the high end of efficiency were Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, and Hong Kong. At the low end, counting from the bottom, were the Dominican Republic, Kenya, Guatemala, Nigeria, Argentina, Haiti, Zaire, and Ecuador. The results? “An increase of one half of a standard deviation in the Weberian score is worth a 26% increase in GDP from 1970 to 1990 controlling for human capital and initial GDP per capita,” Evans said. “An increase of one standard deviation in the Weberian score is effectively the same as a shift in average education of from 3 to 6 years. So bureaucratic capacity has a substantial effect on a country’s chances for economic development.” Brazil under the Workers Party Leftist trade union leader Luiz
