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Income and democracy: revisiting the evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Enrique Moral-Benito

    (Banco de España)

  • Cristian Bartolucci

    (Collegio Carlo Alberto)

Abstract

It is well-known in the literature that income per capita is strongly correlated with the level of democracy across countries. In an infl uential paper, Acemoglu et al. (2008) fi nd that this linear correlation disappears once they control for country-specifi c effects focusing on within-country variation. In this paper we fi nd evidence of a non-linear effect from income to democracy even after controlling for country-specifi c effects. While a positive effect emerges for poor countries, this effect vanishes for rich countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Enrique Moral-Benito & Cristian Bartolucci, 2011. "Income and democracy: revisiting the evidence," Working Papers 1115, Banco de España.
    • Handle: RePEc:bde:wpaper:1115
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Keywords

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    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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