Reassessing the Economic Effects of Post-Socialist Constitutions Using the Synthetic Control Method

Katarzyna Metelska-Szaniawska

No 2016-18, Working Papers from Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw

Abstract: In response to the problems of endogeneity and causality in comparative studies with relatively small sample sizes, a new statistical approach has recently been developed, called the synthetic control method. In this paper we apply this method to reassess the effect of constitution-making in post-socialist countries of Europe and Asia on performance of these countries in the field of economic reforms during the post-1989 transition. We first verify the existence of such effects and evaluate their statistical significance. Then we search for the explanation of these effects and their magnitude focusing on the characteristics of these constitutions and the solutions that they envisage (structural provisions, bills of rights and enforcement mechanisms). Thanks to employing this approach we are able to avoid several technical caveats that have arisen in earlier studies and verify the validity of their conclusions. In addition, we obtain country-specific results for each individual post-socialist state, as well as formulate detailed insights regarding the actual mechanisms or channels of influence of the constitutional framework on economic reforms.

Keywords: Constitutional Economics; post-socialist transition; economic reforms; synthetic control method; synthetic counterfactuals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 K19 P21 P26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2016
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/index.php/download_file/2913/ First version, 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:war:wpaper:2016-18

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Marcin Bąba ().