Living in a democratic society has been internationally recognized as a basic human right. While most of the literature tries to identify the effect of democracy on economic prosperity, little work has been done to understand the determinants of economic growth under democracy. This paper examines whether the determinants of economic growth in Latin America are sensitive to political institutions. We find two stark differences between democratic and autocratic growth: (1) democratic government consumption is significantly positive for economic growth. The opposite is true for autocratic government consumption. (2) The impact of human capital is only significant under democracies.
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Paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Birmingham in its series Discussion Papers with number
07-06.
Find related papers by JEL classification: H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General P16 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Political Economy of Capitalism N46 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation - - - Latin America; Caribbean
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