 The rise of contract-intensive economic structures and democratic development: Are they related?Michael Mousseau and Demet Yalcin Mousseau Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2023, vol. 65, issue C, 273-285 Abstract: Does the rise of contract-intensive economic structures in an economy affect political norms and promote democracy? In this study we delineate how the economic structures of commercial contracting can yield the interests, values, and outlooks that favor the democratic rule of law for the enforcement of contracts. Analyses of most countries from 1950 to 2019 show that the increase in the intensity of contract flows has a significant impact on democracy. The results are robust across a range of specifications, measures, control variables, and with instrumental variable regression to check for reverse causality. A change from the tenth to ninetieth percentile in the institutionalization of commercial contracting corresponds with a substantial 58 to 105% increase in local average treatment effect (LATE) on democracy in the long run, depending on the measures examined. Keywords: Contract-intensive economy; Gift-giving; Commerce; Governance; Democracy; Economic norms theory; Development; Clientelism; Structural change (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:streco:v:65:y:2023:i:c:p:273-285 DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2023.02.017 Access Statistics for this article Structural Change and Economic Dynamics is currently edited by F. Duchin, H. Hagemann, M. Landesmann, R. Scazzieri, A. Steenge and B. Verspagen More articles in Structural Change and Economic Dynamics from Elsevier |
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