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The Role of Freedom, Growth and Religion in the Taste for Revolution

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Author Info
Robert MacCulloch (Princeton University)
Silvia Pezzini (London School of Economics)

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Abstract

Property rights, whose security is often threatened by civil conflict, are a necessary condition for the establishment of a market economy. Yet a fundamental and unresolved empirical question is whether the lack of political and civil freedoms is one of the root causes of greater insecurity. This paper takes a new approach to provide an answer by using micro-data on the revolutionary tastes of 106,170 people in 61 nations between 1981 and 1997. Controlling for country effects, year effects and endogeneity, the level of freedom has strong and robust negative effects on revolutionary support. A one standard deviation rise in freedom, equivalent to a shift from Argentina to the US, decreases the support for a revolt by 3 percentage points, or 38% of the standard deviation of the proportion of people who want one. Higher GDP growth rates can buy off part of the increase in revolutionary support when freedoms are constrained. There is also evidence that being religious reduces revolutionary tastes although the size of the effect varies with the extent of freedom and disappears entirely in non-free nations.

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Paper provided by EconWPA in its series Law and Economics with number 0405002.

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Date of creation: 20 May 2004
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Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwple:0405002

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances
H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
O4 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

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Cited by:
(explanations, 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. Klaus Abbink & Silvia Pezzini, 2005. "Determinants of Revolt: Evidence from Survey and Laboratory Data," Discussion Papers 2005-01, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham. [Downloadable!]
  2. David Masclet & Marie-Claire Villeval, 2008. "Punishment, inequality, and welfare: a public good experiment," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 475-502, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Dehejia, Rajeev & DeLeire, Thomas & Luttmer, Erzo F. P., 2005. "Insuring Consumption and Happiness through Religious Organizations," Working Paper Series rwp05-047, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. [Downloadable!]
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