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Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details

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Torsten Persson
Guido Tabellini

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Abstract

Does democracy promote economic development? We review recent attempts to address this question, which exploit the within-country variation associated with historical transitions in and out of democracy. The answer is positive, but depends %u2013 in a subtle way %u2013 on the details of democratic reforms. First, democratizations and economic liberalizations in isolation each induce growth accelerations, but countries liberalizing their economy before extending political rights do better than those carrying out the opposite sequence. Second, different forms of democratic government and different electoral systems lead to different fiscal trade policies: this might explain why new presidential democracies grow faster than new parliamentary democracies. Third, it is important to distinguish between expected and actual political reforms: expectations of regime change have an independent effect on growth, and taking expectations into account helps identify a stronger growth effect of democracy.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11993.

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Date of creation: Feb 2006
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11993

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
P0 - Economic Systems - - General
O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
E0 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Dani Rodrik & Romain Wacziarg, 2005. "Do Democratic Transitions Produce Bad Economic Outcomes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 50-55, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Process of Global Integration," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1995-1), pages 1-118. [Downloadable!]
  3. Persson, Torsten, 2005. "Forms of Democracy, Policy and Economic Development," CEPR Discussion Papers 4938, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2004. "Constitutional Rules and Fiscal Policy Outcomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 25-45, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Giavazzi, Francesco & Tabellini, Guido, 2005. "Economic and political liberalizations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1297-1330, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, . "Democratic capital: The nexus of political and economic change," Working Papers 308, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Elias Papaioannou & Gregorios Siourounis, 2007. "Democratization And Growth," CEDI Discussion Paper Series 07-13, Centre for Economic Development and Institutions(CEDI), Brunel University. [Downloadable!]
  8. Jeffrey Sachs & Andrew Warner, 1995. "Economic Reform and the Progress of Global Integration," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1733, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
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  1. Pauline Grosjean & Claudia Senik, 2007. "Should market liberalization precede democracy? Causal relations between political preferences and development," PSE Working Papers 2007-17, PSE (Ecole normale supérieure). [Downloadable!]
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  2. Nadia Fiorino & Roberto Ricciuti, 2007. "Determinants of Direct Democracy," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  3. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2007. "The Growth Effect of Democracy: Is it Heterogenous and how can it be Estimated?," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Aidt, T.S. & Eterovic, D.S., 2007. "Give and Take: Political Competition, Participation and Public Finance in 20th Century Latin America," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0714, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. [Downloadable!]
  5. Georgy Egorov & Sergei Guriev & Konstantin Sonin, 2006. "Media Freedom, Bureaucratic Incentives, and the Resource Curse," Working Papers w0063, Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR), revised Jun 2006. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Graziella Bertocchi & Chiara Strozzi, 2006. "The Age of Mass Migration: Economic and Institutional Determinants," IZA Discussion Papers 2499, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  7. Antonio Ciccone & Markus Brückner, 2008. "Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity," Economics Working Papers 1063, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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