From Policy to Practice: How Governance Quality Shapes the Equitable Distribution of Resources for Key Sectors

This thesis examines the impact of governance quality on the equitable allocation of resources in a country, ensuring accessibility across four critical sectors: healthcare, education, clean water and sanitation, and affordable housing. While economic growth has long been associated with better governance, less attention has been given to how governance quality shapes the distribution of essential public resources. This study bridges that gap by analyzing how governance influences resource equity across different income brackets. As global challenges such as climate change, health crises, and resource scarcity intensify, ensuring efficiency and equity in resource allocation is fundamental to reducing inequality and poverty. Poor governance often leads to inefficiencies, mismanagement, and corruption, disproportionately harming marginalized communities by limiting their access to essential services. The limited literature on these distributional effects underscores the need to determine whether improved governance benefits all citizens or primarily the affluent. Using panel data regression, this study incorporates the six dimensions of governance quality as defined by the World Bank alongside metrics of equity in healthcare, education, clean water and sanitation, and affordable housing. Unlike previous research that primarily focuses on GDP growth, this analysis employs measures such as the Human Development Index (HDI), life expectancy, and access to essential services to provide a more comprehensive perspective on well-being. The findings offer policy-relevant insights to support more effective and equitable resource allocation decisions, ensuring sustainability and inclusivity-particularly in resource-constrained economies.