IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecanpo/v76y2022icp1053-1074.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of youth bulge on political instability: Cross-country evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Al-Jabri, Nasser
  • Campbell, Neil
  • Saha, Shrabani
  • Khan, Safdar

Abstract

This paper investigates how unemployment and democracy influence the relationship between youth bulges and political instability. A novel feature of our empirical analysis is that we examine the joint effect of labour markets and the level of democracy in the linkage between youth bulges and political instability. Using political instability data derived from the International Country Risk Guide we conduct a series of panel data analyses over one hundred countries and make use of several sub-samples for the years 1984–2019. We find that youth bulge alone enhances political instability, while high rates of unemployment further enhance its role. Interestingly, we find that moving towards democracy increases its effect upon political instability if greater percentages of youth population and unemployment persist in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Al-Jabri, Nasser & Campbell, Neil & Saha, Shrabani & Khan, Safdar, 2022. "The role of youth bulge on political instability: Cross-country evidence," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1053-1074.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:76:y:2022:i:c:p:1053-1074
    DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2022.09.013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0313592622001552
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.eap.2022.09.013?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David E. Bloom & David Canning, 2004. "Global demographic change : dimensions and economic significance," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Aug, pages 9-56.
    2. Bloom, David E & Williamson, Jeffrey G, 1998. "Demographic Transitions and Economic Miracles in Emerging Asia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 12(3), pages 419-455, September.
    3. Scott Gates & Håvard Hegre & Mark P. Jones & Håvard Strand, 2006. "Institutional Inconsistency and Political Instability: Polity Duration, 1800–2000," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(4), pages 893-908, October.
    4. David E. BLOOM & Jocelyn E. FINLAY, 2009. "Demographic Change and Economic Growth in Asia," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 4(1), pages 45-64, June.
    5. Uddin, Md Akther & Ali, Md Hakim & Masih, Mansur, 2017. "Political stability and growth: An application of dynamic GMM and quantile regression," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 610-625.
    6. Mona Said, 1996. "Public Sector Employment & Labor Markets in Arab Countries: Recent Developments & Policy Implications," Working Papers 9630, Economic Research Forum, revised 10 Oct 1996.
    7. Miljkovic, Dragan & Rimal, Arbindra, 2008. "The impact of socio-economic factors on political instability: A cross-country analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2454-2463, December.
    8. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2004. "Greed and grievance in civil war," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 56(4), pages 563-595, October.
    9. Morrison, Kevin M., 2009. "Oil, Nontax Revenue, and the Redistributional Foundations of Regime Stability," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(1), pages 107-138, January.
    10. Alesina, Alberto & Özler, Sule & Roubini, Nouriel & Swagel, Phillip, 1996. "Political Instability and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 189-211, June.
    11. David E. Bloom & David Canning & Pia N. Malaney, 1999. "Demographic Change and Economic Growth in Asia," CID Working Papers 15, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    12. Diane J. Macunovich, 2000. "Relative Cohort Size: Source of a Unifying Theory of Global Fertility Transition?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 26(2), pages 235-261, June.
    13. Dawson, John W., 2003. "Causality in the freedom-growth relationship," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 479-495, September.
    14. Benjamin Smith, 2004. "Oil Wealth and Regime Survival in the Developing World, 1960–1999," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 48(2), pages 232-246, April.
    15. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    16. Saha, Shrabani & Gounder, Rukmani, 2013. "Corruption and economic development nexus: Variations across income levels in a non-linear framework," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 70-79.
    17. Jack A. Goldstone & Robert H. Bates & David L. Epstein & Ted Robert Gurr & Michael B. Lustik & Monty G. Marshall & Jay Ulfelder & Mark Woodward, 2010. "A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 190-208, January.
    18. Leonie Kaphahn & Louis Brennan, 2017. "Reassessing the risk conditions for political instability in the light of the Arab Spring," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(11), pages 1497-1515, November.
    19. Moulton, Brent R., 1986. "Random group effects and the precision of regression estimates," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 385-397, August.
    20. Antonis A. Ellinas, 2013. "The Rise of Golden Dawn: The New Face of the Far Right in Greece," South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(4), pages 543-565, December.
    21. Marcus Alfred A. & Islam Mazhar & Moloney John, 2009. "Youth Bulges, Busts, and Doing Business in Violence-Prone Nations," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-42, January.
    22. Barakat, Bilal & Urdal, Henrik, 2009. "Breaking the waves ? does education mediate the relationship between youth bulges and political violence ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5114, The World Bank.
    23. Lambsdorff,Johann Graf, 2007. "The Institutional Economics of Corruption and Reform," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521872751.
    24. Wooldridge, Jeffrey M., 2009. "On estimating firm-level production functions using proxy variables to control for unobservables," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 112-114, September.
    25. Edward Miguel & Shanker Satyanath & Ernest Sergenti, 2004. "Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(4), pages 725-753, August.
    26. Moulton, Brent R, 1990. "An Illustration of a Pitfall in Estimating the Effects of Aggregate Variables on Micro Unit," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(2), pages 334-338, May.
    27. Shahbaz, Muhammad, 2013. "Linkages between inflation, economic growth and terrorism in Pakistan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 496-506.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anna Balestra & Raul Caruso, 2024. "Education and Military Expenditures: Countervailing Forces in Designing Economic Policy. A Contribution to the Empirics of Peace," DISCE - Quaderni del Dipartimento di Politica Economica dipe0035, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bodea, Cristina & Higashijima, Masaaki & Singh, Raju Jan, 2016. "Oil and Civil Conflict: Can Public Spending Have a Mitigation Effect?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 1-12.
    2. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    3. Andrey Korotayev & Ilya Vaskin & Stanislav Bilyuga & Alina Khokhlova & Anastasia Baltach & Eugeny Ivanov & Kira Meshcherina, 2017. "Economic Development and Sociopolitical Destabilization: A Re-Analysis," HSE Working papers WP BRP 46/PS/2017, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    4. Christopher Blattman & Edward Miguel, 2010. "Civil War," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 3-57, March.
    5. Samuel Bazzi, Christopher Blattman, 2011. "Economic Shocks and Conflict: The (Absence of?) Evidence from Commodity Price- Working Paper 274," Working Papers 274, Center for Global Development.
    6. Samuel Brazys & Krishna Chaitanya Vadlamannati & Indra de Soysa, 2019. "Oil Price Volatility and Political Unrest: Prudence and Protest in Producer and Consumer Societies, 1980-2013," Working Papers 201908 Key words: Oil wea, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    7. Vadlamannati, Krishna Chaitanya & de Soysa, Indra, 2020. "Oil price volatility and political unrest: Prudence and protest in producer and consumer societies, 1980–2013," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    8. Janus, Thorsten & Riera-Crichton, Daniel, 2015. "Economic shocks, civil war and ethnicity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 32-44.
    9. Diaz-Bautista, Alejandro, 2002. "The role of telecommunications infrastructure and human capital: Mexico´s economic growth and convergence," ERSA conference papers ersa02p102, European Regional Science Association.
    10. Husain, Muhammad Jami, 2009. "Contribution of health to economic development: a survey and overview," Economics Discussion Papers 2009-40, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    11. Sunde, Uwe & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe & Cervellati, Matteo, 2011. "Democratization and Civil Liberties: The Role of Violence During the Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 8315, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Fenja Søndergaard Møller, 2019. "Blue blood or true blood: Why are levels of intrastate armed conflict so low in Middle Eastern monarchies?," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 36(5), pages 517-544, September.
    13. Massimiliano Calì & Alen Mulabdic, 2017. "Trade and civil conflict: Revisiting the cross-country evidence," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 195-232, February.
    14. Cervellati, Matteo & Fortunato, Piergiuseppe & Sunde, Uwe, 2014. "Violence during democratization and the quality of democratic institutions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 226-247.
    15. David E Bloom & David Canning, 2006. "Global Demography: Fact, Force and Future," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Christopher Kent & Anna Park & Daniel Rees (ed.),Demography and Financial Markets, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    16. Ilyas, Saddam & Mehmood, Bilal & Aslam, Raees, 2017. "Terrorism and Poverty: Double Trouble for Macroeconomic Performance in African Countries," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 5(1), January.
    17. David E. BLOOM & Jocelyn E. FINLAY, 2009. "Demographic Change and Economic Growth in Asia," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 4(1), pages 45-64, June.
    18. Husain, Muhammad Jami, 2010. "Contribution of health to economic development: A survey and overview," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-52.
    19. Alberto Abadie, 2006. "Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 50-56, May.
    20. E. J. Wilson & K. Jayanthakumaran & R. Verma, 2012. "Demographics, Labor Mobility, and Productivity," Development Economics Working Papers 23348, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:76:y:2022:i:c:p:1053-1074. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economic-analysis-and-policy .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.