Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details

Torsten Persson () and Guido Tabellini

No 1672, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Does democracy promote economic development? This paper reviews recent attempts to address this question that exploited within-country variation. It shows that the answer is largely positive, but also depends on the details of democratic reforms. First, the sequence of economic vs political reforms matters: countries liberalizing their economy before extending political rights do better. Second, different forms of democratic government lead to different economic policies, and this might explain why presidential democracy leads to faster growth than parliamentary democracy. Third, it is important to distinguish between expected and actual political reforms. Taking expectations of regime change into account helps identify a stronger growth effect of democracy.

Keywords: democracy; reform; growth; institutions; difference in difference (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-pol and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (245)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details (2006)
Working Paper: Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details (2006)
Working Paper: Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details (2006)
Working Paper: Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details (2006)
Working Paper: Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details (2006)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1672

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