The Effects of Mayors’ Human Capital on Investments in Northern Cameroonian Municipalities

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to examine the effects of mayors’ human capital on the investments of northern Cameroonian municipalities. The human capital of mayors is operationalized in terms of the level of education (diploma), training, and age. The data in the study are from 46 councils in northern Cameroon, including 21 in the Adamawa region, 12 in the north, and 13 in the far north. After carrying out the preliminary statistical tests (multicollinearity and homoscedasticity) for the cross-sectional data, the result of OLS shows that the human capital of mayors has an effect on the investments of northern Cameroonian municipalities. Particularly, the level of education of mayor (as measured by the diploma) has positive effects on municipal investments. However, the coefficients of educational attainment and age of mayors are not significant. The result also shows that the coefficients of some control variables are statistically significant.