Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Do Output Contractions Trigger Democratic Change?

Contents:

Author Info

  • Paul J. Burke
  • Andrew Leigh

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. (JEL D72, E23, E32, O11, O17, O47)

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mac.2.4.124
Download Restriction: no
File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/data/2008-0115_data.zip
Download Restriction: no
File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mac/app/2008-0115_app.pdf
Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Bibliographic Info

Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics.

Volume (Year): 2 (2010)
Issue (Month): 4 (October)
Pages: 124-57

as in new window
Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:2:y:2010:i:4:p:124-57

Note: DOI: 10.1257/mac.2.4.124
Contact details of provider:
Email:
Web page: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-macro
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Web: http://www.aeaweb.org/subscribe.html

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

No references listed on IDEAS
You can help add them by filling out this form.

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Growth and democratic change: there is no free lunch
    by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2010-03-05 13:22:00
  2. Ger ökad tillväxt demokratisering?
    by Niclas Berggren in Nonicoclolasos on 2010-03-26 04:31:44
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Marcus Brückner & Antonio Ciccone & Andrea Tesei, 2011. "Oil price shocks, income and democracy," Economics Working Papers 1351, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
  2. Francesco Caselli & Andrea Tesei, 2011. "Resource Windfalls, Political Regimes, and Political Stability," CEP Discussion Papers dp1091, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
  3. Paul J Burke, 2011. "Economic Growth and Political Survival," Departmental Working Papers 2011-06, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
  4. Christian EBEKE & Jean-Louis COMBES & Mireille NTSAMA ETOUNDI & Thierry YOGO, 2011. "Are Foreign Aid and Remittances a Hedge against Food Price Shocks in Developing Countries?," Working Papers 201121, CERDI.
  5. Toke, A.S. & Albornoz, F. & Gassebner, M., 2012. "The Golden Hello and Political Transitions," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1241, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
  6. David I. Stern, 2011. "From Correlation to Granger Causality," Crawford School Research Papers 1113, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
  7. Rabah Arezki & Markus Brückner, 2011. "Food Prices and Political Instability," CESifo Working Paper Series 3544, CESifo Group Munich.
  8. Paul Maarek & Michael Dorsch & Karl Dunz, 2012. "Macro Shocks, Regulatory Quality and Costly Political Action," THEMA Working Papers 2012-41, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
  9. Almer, Christian & Laurent-Lucchetti, Jérémy & oechslin, Manuel, 2011. "Income shocks and social unrest: theory and evidence," MPRA Paper 34426, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  10. International Monetary Fund, 2012. "Are Foreign Aid and Remittance Inflows a Hedge against Food Price Shocks?," IMF Working Papers 12/67, International Monetary Fund.

Lists

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:
  1. Economic Logic blog

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:2:y:2010:i:4:p:124-57

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jane Voros) or (Michael P. Albert).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.