IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/20874.html

The Economic Consequences of Democratic Backsliding: Evidence from U.S. States

Author

Listed:
  • Boese-Schlosser, Vanessa
  • Desbordes, Rodolphe
  • Eberhardt, Markus
  • Larch, Mario

Abstract

Recent research has demonstrated that U.S. states are bellwethers of national institutional decline, acting as 'laboratories of autocratisation' through voter repression and gerrymandering. We provide first evidence for the economic consequences of sub-national democratic backsliding in the United States. We find that backsliding episodes during 2000-2023 do not systematically lead to lower per capita income but do cause an increase in income inequality and the impoverished. Innovation efforts (business R&D expenditure) and outputs (patenting) contract substantially, undermining the endogenous growth engine of the economy. International exports are unaffected, suggesting that foreign accountability operates through national-level institutions rather than sub-national ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Boese-Schlosser, Vanessa & Desbordes, Rodolphe & Eberhardt, Markus & Larch, Mario, 2025. "The Economic Consequences of Democratic Backsliding: Evidence from U.S. States," CEPR Discussion Papers 20874, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20874
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP20874
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations
    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:20874. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CEPR (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://cepr.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.