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The good, the bad, and the civil society

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  • Che, Jiahua
  • Chung, Kim-Sau
  • Qiao, Xue

Abstract

There are three signature features of autocracies. First, there is a wide variety across autocracies in terms of economic performance: some do much better and some much worse than democracies. Second, economic performance of a given autocracy is more sensitive to leader quality, and exhibits higher volatility. Third, all autocracies, good or bad, tend to have weaker civil societies than democracies do. We attribute these features to the core of the autocratic political institution: the incumbent leader selects the future leader as opposed to citizens at large selecting the future leader under democracy. We deliver our analysis in an overlapping-generations model where two kinds of dynamic free-riding problems arise. The first arises among different generations of citizens in implementing far-sighted policies. Political leaders come in two types, good ones aim to correct this first kind of dynamic free-riding problem, while bad ones do not care and only aim to steal public assets. Both types need a weak civil society to achieve their goals, but a second dynamic free-riding problem arises among different leaders when it comes to weakening the civil society. The autocratic leader-selection mechanism helps resolve this second dynamic free-riding problem, results in a continuously weakened civil society, and generates large variations of economic performances both within a given autocracy and across different autocracies. A rich set of comparative statics is derived.

Suggested Citation

  • Che, Jiahua & Chung, Kim-Sau & Qiao, Xue, 2013. "The good, the bad, and the civil society," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 68-76.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:106:y:2013:i:c:p:68-76
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2013.08.006
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    Cited by:

    1. Bhattarai, Keshab, 2015. "Constitution, Institutions and A Model for Economic Development in Nepal," MPRA Paper 93261, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Apr 2019.
    2. Chiu Yu Ko & Mark Koyama & Tuan†Hwee Sng, 2018. "Unified China And Divided Europe," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(1), pages 285-327, February.
    3. Wang, Bin & Zheng, Yu, 2020. "A model of tournament incentives with corruption," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 182-197.
    4. Che, Jiahua & Chung, Kim-Sau & Qiao, Xue, 2019. "The king can do no wrong: On the criminal immunity of leaders," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 15-26.
    5. Che, Jiahua & Chung, Kim-Sau & Lu, Yang K., 2017. "Decentralization and political career concerns," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 201-210.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Autocracy; Democracy; Political selection; Civil society;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies

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