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Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity

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Author Info
Brückner, Markus
Ciccone, Antonio

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Abstract

According to the economic approach to political transitions, negative transitory economic shocks can give rise to a window of opportunity for democratic change. We examine this hypothesis using yearly rainfall variation over the 1980-2004 period in 41 Sub-Saharan African countries. We find that a 25% drop in rainfall increases the probability of a transition to democracy during the following two years by around 3 percentage points. A 5% fall in income due to low rainfall raises the probability of democratization by around 7 percentage points. We also find that rainfall does not affect transitions from democracy to autocracy.

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Paper provided by C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 6691.

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Date of creation: Feb 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:6691

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Keywords: democratization transitory economic shocks

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O0 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - General
P0 - Economic Systems - - General

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References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Jess Benhabib & Adam Przeworski, 2006. "The political economy of redistribution under democracy," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 271-290, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2006. "Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details," CEPR Discussion Papers 5499, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Joshua Angrist & Alan Krueger, 2001. "Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments," Working Papers 834, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section.. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2007. "The Growth Effect of Democracy: Is It Heterogenous and How Can It Be Estimated?," NBER Working Papers 13150, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2001. "A Theory of Political Transitions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 938-963, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Stock, James H & Wright, Jonathan H & Yogo, Motohiro, 2002. "A Survey of Weak Instruments and Weak Identification in Generalized Method of Moments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 518-29, October.
  7. Acemoglu, Daron & Johnson, Simon & Robinson, James A & Yared, Pierre, 2007. "Reevaluating the Modernization Hypothesis," CEPR Discussion Papers 6430, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Paxson, Christina H, 1992. "Using Weather Variability to Estimate the Response of Savings to Transitory Income in Thailand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 15-33, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Fuller, Wayne A, 1977. "Some Properties of a Modification of the Limited Information Estimator," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(4), pages 939-53, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. repec:fth:prinin:455 is not listed on IDEAS
  11. Jinyong Hahn & Jerry Hausman, 2003. "Weak Instruments: Diagnosis and Cures in Empirical Econometrics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 118-125, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Elias Papaioannou & Gregorios Siourounis, 2007. "Initial Factors Behind The Third Wave of Democratization," Working Papers 0002, University of Peloponnese, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  1. Thorsten Drautzburg & Inna Melnykovska & Rainer Schweickert, 2008. "Which Membership Matters? External vs. Internal Determinants of Institutional Change in Transition Countries," Kiel Working Papers 1421, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
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