Crop Yield and Democracy

James Ang, Per Fredriksson and Satyendra Gupta

Land Economics, 2020, vol. 96, issue 2, 265-290

Abstract: How does the historical legacy of agriculture affect democratic traditions in contemporary societies? This paper provides empirical evidence that inherent crop yield and democracy exhibit an inverted U-shaped relationship. This finding is supported by cross-country data from up to 147 countries, 186 pre-colonial societies, and the U.S. states. The relationship thus exhibits a highly persistent pattern. Crop yield is measured by kilocalories per hectare per year under rain-fed conditions, which has the advantage of being highly exogenous. The hump-shaped relationship holds up to a battery of robustness tests.

JEL-codes: O11 O13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
Note: DOI: 10.3368/le.96.2.265
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uwp:landec:v:96:y:2020:i:2:p:265-290

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