Do Output Contractions Trigger Democratic Change?

Paul Burke () and Andrew Leigh

No 4808, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Does faster economic growth increase pressure for democratic change, or reduce it? Using data for 154 countries for the period 1963-2007, we examine the short-run relationship between economic growth and moves toward and away from greater democracy. To address the potential endogeneity of economic growth, we use variation in precipitation, temperatures, and commodity prices as instruments for a country’s rate of economic growth. Our results indicate that more rapid economic growth reduces the short-run likelihood of institutional change toward democracy. Output contractions due to adverse weather shocks appear to have a particularly important impact on the timing of democratic change.

Keywords: weather; democratization; economic growth; commodity prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 N40 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 85 pages
Date: 2010-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fdg
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (116)

Published - published in: American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2010, 2 (4), 124-157

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4808.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do Output Contractions Trigger Democratic Change? (2010)
Working Paper: Do output contractions trigger democratic change? (2010)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4808

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().