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Income and democracy: Revisiting the evidence

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  • Moral-Benito, Enrique
  • Bartolucci, Cristian

Abstract

In an influential paper, Acemoglu et al. (2008) find that the positive correlation between income per capita and the level of democracy across countries vanishes once country-specific effects are accounted for. In this paper, we find evidence of a non-linear effect from income to democracy even after controlling for country-specific effects. In particular, our findings point to the existence of a positive effect only in low-income countries.

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  • Moral-Benito, Enrique & Bartolucci, Cristian, 2012. "Income and democracy: Revisiting the evidence," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 844-847.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:117:y:2012:i:3:p:844-847
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2012.08.045
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    Cited by:

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    2. Tian, Jilin & Sim, Nicholas & Yan, Wenshou & Li, Yanyun, 2020. "Trade uncertainty, income, and democracy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 21-31.
    3. Saha, Shrabani & Zhang, Zhaoyong, 2017. "Democracy-growth nexus and its interaction effect on human development: A cross-national analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 304-310.
    4. Wadjamsse B. Djezou, 2014. "The Democracy and Economic Growth Nexus: Empirical Evidence from Côte d’Ivoire," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 11(2), pages 251-266, December.
    5. Christopher J. Ellis & John Fender, 2014. "Public Sector Capital and the Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 82(3), pages 322-346, June.
    6. Alberto Batinti & Joan Costa‐Font & Timothy J. Hatton, 2022. "Voting Up? The Effects of Democracy and Franchise Extension on Human Stature," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(353), pages 161-190, January.
    7. Heid, Benedikt & Langer, Julian & Larch, Mario, 2012. "Income and democracy: Evidence from system GMM estimates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 166-169.
    8. Sequeira Tiago Neves, 2017. "Democracy and income: taking parameter heterogeneity and cross-country dependency into account," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(2), pages 1-19, June.
    9. Alexander Kemnitz & Martin Roessler, 2023. "The effects of economic development on democratic institutions and repression in non-democratic regimes: theory and evidence," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 145-164, June.
    10. Michal Madr, 2016. "Economic Development as a Factor of Democratisation: Evidence from Post-Socialist Economies," MENDELU Working Papers in Business and Economics 2016-70, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics.
    11. Filipe R. Campante & Davin Chor, 2012. "Why Was the Arab World Poised for Revolution? Schooling, Economic Opportunities, and the Arab Spring," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(2), pages 167-188, Spring.
    12. Rajius Idzalika & Thomas Kneib & Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, 2019. "The effect of income on democracy revisited a flexible distributional approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1207-1230, April.
    13. Matteo Cervellati & Florian Jung & Uwe Sunde & Thomas Vischer, 2014. "Income and Democracy: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(2), pages 707-719, February.
    14. Rainer Kotschy & Uwe Sunde, 2021. "Income Shocks, Inequality, and Democracy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(1), pages 295-326, January.
    15. Pittaluga, Giovanni B. & Reghezza, Alessio & Seghezza, Elena, 2020. "Reconsidering the modernization hypothesis: The role of diversified production and interest‐group competition," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    16. Fahad Hassan Khan, 2014. "From revenues to democracy?," Departmental Working Papers 2014-25, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
    17. Efeoglu, Rabia & Azgun , Sabri, 2022. "The Effect of Industrial, Financial, Technological and Environmental Development Indicators on the Democracy Level in Emerging Economies," Journal of Economic Development, The Economic Research Institute, Chung-Ang University, vol. 47(2), pages 1-19, June.
    18. Kemnitz, Alexander & Roessler, Martin, 2017. "Economic development, democratic institutions, and repression in non-democratic regimes: Theory and evidence," CEPIE Working Papers 04/17, Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE).
    19. Suzanna-Maria Paleologou, 2015. "Income and democracy: the modernization hypothesis re-visited via alternative non-linear models," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 909-921, March.
    20. Shirleen Manzur, 2022. "Are Elections Enough?," Discussion Papers dp22-05, Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University.
    21. Jess Benhabib & Alejandro Corvalen & Mark M. Spiegel, 2014. "Modernization and Discrete Measures of Democracy," Working Paper Series 2014-1, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    22. Arayssi, Mahmoud & Fakih, Ali, 2017. "Finance–growth nexus in a changing political region: How important was the Arab Spring?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 106-123.
    23. Nicholas Apergis & James E. Payne, 2017. "From education to democracy: evidence from long-run time-varying estimates," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 64(4), pages 313-325, December.
    24. Benhabib, Jess & Corvalan, Alejandro & Spiegel, Mark M., 2013. "Income and democracy: Evidence from nonlinear estimations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(3), pages 489-492.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democracy; Income; Lipset hypothesis; Panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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    1. Income and democracy: Revisiting the evidence (EL 2012) in ReplicationWiki

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