Democracy and Volatility: Do Special-Interest Groups Matter?

Bonnie Wilson (), Dennis Coates () and Jac Heckelman ()

Working Papers from Department of Economics, John Cook School of Business, Saint Louis University

Abstract: This paper empirically explores the relationship between special-interest groups and volatility, with focus on the interplay between groups and democracy and on the impact of groups on policy volatility. We find that countries with more interest groups are characterized by less policy volatility; that the number of interest groups has a direct impact on growth volatility, in addition to an indirect impact through policy volatility; and that interest groups appear to be a channel through which democracy impacts both policy volatility and growth volatility.

Keywords: special interest groups; volatility; democracy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P16 O43 D7 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
Date: 2008-08, Revised 2009-08
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:slu:wpaper:2008-01

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