No Country for Old Men: Aging Dictators and Economic Growth

Richard Jong-A-Pin (richardjongapin@gmail.com) and Jochen Mierau

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: This paper develops a model of the relationship between the age of a dictator and economic growth. In the model a dictator must spread the resources of the economy over his reign but faces mortality and political risk. The model shows that if the time horizon of the dictator decreases, either due to an increase of mortality risk or political risk, the economic growth rate decreases. The model predictions are supported by empirical evidence based on a three-way fixed effects model including country, year and dictator fixed effects for a sample of dictators from 116 countries. These results are robust to sample selection, the tenure of dictators, the definition of dictatorship, and a broad set of economic growth determinants.

Keywords: Aging; economic growth; government performance; political instability; political leaders (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 O11 O43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-09-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-cwa and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Related works:
Journal Article: No country for old men: Aging dictators and economic growth (2022)
Working Paper: No Country for Old Men: Aging Dictators and Economic Growth (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:1158

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