Socioeconomic transitions as common dynamic processes

Long-run socioeconomic transitions can be observed as stylized facts across countries and over time. For instance, poor countries have more agriculture and less democracy than rich countries, and this pattern also holds within countries for transitions from a traditional to a modern society. It is shown that the agricultural and the democratic transitions can be partly explained as the outcome of dynamic processes that are shared among countries. We identify the effects of common dynamic processes with panel estimators that allow for heterogeneous country effects and possible cross-country spillovers. Common dynamic processes appear to be in line with alternative hypotheses on the causes of socioeconomic transitions.