IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03460288.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The democratic transition

Author

Listed:
  • Fabrice Murtin

    (Economics department - MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

  • Romain Wacziarg

    (UCLA Anderson School of Management)

Abstract

Over the last two centuries, many countries experienced regime transitions toward democracy. We document this democratic transition over a long time horizon. We use historical time series of income, education and democracy levels from 1870 to 2000 to explore the economic factors associated with rising levels of democracy. We find that primary schooling, and to a weaker extent per capita income levels, are strong determinants of the quality of political institutions. We find little evidence of causality running the other way, from democracy to income or education.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabrice Murtin & Romain Wacziarg, 2014. "The democratic transition," Post-Print hal-03460288, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03460288
    DOI: 10.1007/s10887-013-9100-6
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03460288
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-03460288/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10887-013-9100-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Willa Friedman & Michael Kremer & Edward Miguel & Rebecca Thornton, 2016. "Education as Liberation?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(329), pages 1-30, January.
    2. Sascha O. Becker & Ludger Woessmann, 2009. "Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(2), pages 531-596.
    3. Christian Morrisson & Fabrice Murtin, 2009. "The Century of Education," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 1-42.
    4. Bun, Maurice J.G. & Carree, Martin A., 2005. "Bias-Corrected Estimation in Dynamic Panel Data Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 200-210, April.
    5. Edward Glaeser & Giacomo Ponzetto & Andrei Shleifer, 2007. "Why does democracy need education?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 77-99, June.
    6. David Roodman, 2009. "How to do xtabond2: An introduction to difference and system GMM in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 9(1), pages 86-136, March.
    7. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2006. "Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 319-324, May.
    8. Robert J. Barro, 1998. "Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522543, April.
    9. Milligan, Kevin & Moretti, Enrico & Oreopoulos, Philip, 2004. "Does education improve citizenship? Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(9-10), pages 1667-1695, August.
    10. Andersen, Torben G & Sorensen, Bent E, 1996. "GMM Estimation of a Stochastic Volatility Model: A Monte Carlo Study," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 14(3), pages 328-352, July.
    11. Fabrice Murtin & Martina Viarengo, 2010. "American education in the age of mass migrations 1870–1930," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 4(2), pages 113-139, June.
    12. Helliwell, John F., 1994. "Empirical Linkages Between Democracy and Economic Growth," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 225-248, April.
    13. Barro, Robert J, 1996. "Democracy and Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 1-27, March.
    14. Matteo Cervellati & Uwe Sunde, 2005. "Human Capital Formation, Life Expectancy, and the Process of Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1653-1672, December.
    15. Maurice J. G. Bun & Frank Windmeijer, 2010. "The weak instrument problem of the system GMM estimator in dynamic panel data models," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 13(1), pages 95-126, February.
    16. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson & Pierre Yared, 2008. "Income and Democracy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 808-842, June.
    17. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, 2009. "Democratic Capital: The Nexus of Political and Economic Change," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(2), pages 88-126, July.
    18. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson & Pierre Yared, 2005. "From Education to Democracy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 44-49, May.
    19. 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.
    20. Pauline Grosjean & Claudia Senik, 2011. "Democracy, Market Liberalization, and Political Preferences," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 365-381, February.
    21. Fabrice Murtin & Romain Wacziarg, 2014. "The democratic transition," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 19(2), pages 141-181, June.
    22. Bruno, Giovanni S.F., 2005. "Approximating the bias of the LSDV estimator for dynamic unbalanced panel data models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 361-366, June.
    23. Filipe Campante & Edward L. Glaeser, 2018. "Yet another tale of two cities: Buenos Aires and Chicago," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 27(1), pages 1-33, December.
    24. Daniel Cohen & Marcelo Soto, 2007. "Growth and human capital: good data, good results," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 51-76, March.
    25. Jess Benhabib & Alejandro Corvalen & Mark M. Spiegel, 2011. "Reestablishing the income-democracy nexus," Working Paper Series 2011-09, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    26. Galor, Oded, 2005. "From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 171-293, Elsevier.
    27. Christian Morrisson & Fabrice Murtin, 2010. "The Kuznets Curve of Education: A Global Perspective on Education Inequalities," CEE Discussion Papers 0116, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    28. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    29. Philippe Aghion & Xavier Jaravel & Torsten Persson & Dorothée Rouzet, 2019. "Education and Military Rivalry," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 376-412.
    30. Boris Lokshin, 2009. "Further results on bias in dynamic unbalanced panel data models with an application to firm R&D investment," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(12), pages 1227-1233.
    31. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    32. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1167-1199.
    33. Timothy J. Hatton & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2008. "Global Migration and the World Economy: Two Centuries of Policy and Performance," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262582775, April.
    34. Bobba, Matteo & Coviello, Decio, 2007. "Weak instruments and weak identification, in estimating the effects of education, on democracy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 301-306, September.
    35. Galor, Oded & Weil, David N, 1996. "The Gender Gap, Fertility, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 374-387, June.
    36. Tavares, Jose & Wacziarg, Romain, 2001. "How democracy affects growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(8), pages 1341-1378, August.
    37. François Bourguignon & Christian Morrisson, 2002. "Inequality Among World Citizens: 1820-1992," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(4), pages 727-744, September.
    38. Edward L. Glaeser & Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "Do Institutions Cause Growth?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 271-303, September.
    39. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory and Comparative Development," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, issue 2, pages 9-21, April-Jun.
    40. Daniel Treisman, 2011. "Income, Democracy, and the Cunning of Reason," NBER Working Papers 17132, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    41. Lindert,Peter H., 2009. "Growing Public," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521529174, September.
    42. Casey B. Mulligan & Ricard Gil & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2004. "Do Democracies Have Different Public Policies than Nondemocracies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(1), pages 51-74, Winter.
    43. Philippe Aghion & Alberto Alesina & Francesco Trebbi, 2007. "Democracy, Technology, and Growth," NBER Working Papers 13180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    44. David Roodman, 2009. "A Note on the Theme of Too Many Instruments," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 135-158, February.
    45. 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.
    46. Martin Paldam & Erich Gundlach, 2012. "The Democratic Transition: Short-run and Long-run Causality between Income and the Gastil Index," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 24(1), pages 144-168, February.
    47. Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem & Ryder, Harl E. & Weil, David N., 2000. "Mortality decline, human capital investment, and economic growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 1-23, June.
    48. Matteo Cervellati & Sunde, Uwe, 2011. "Democratization, Violent Social Conflicts, and Growth," Economics Working Paper Series 1114, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    49. Castelló-Climent, Amparo, 2008. "On the distribution of education and democracy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 179-190, October.
    50. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2001. "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1369-1401, December.
    51. Mulligan Casey B & Gil Ricard & Sala-i-Martin Xavier X, 2010. "Social Security and Democracy," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-46, March.
    52. Boix, Carles, 2011. "Democracy, Development, and the International System," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 105(4), pages 809-828, November.
    53. repec:bla:apacel:v:20:y:2006:i::p:1-37 is not listed on IDEAS
    54. Silvio Borner & Aymo Brunetti & Beatrice Weder, 1995. "Political Credibility and Economic Development," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-24049-4, December.
    55. Fabrice Murtin, 2013. "Long-Term Determinants of the Demographic Transition, 1870–2000," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 617-631, May.
    56. William Hauk & Romain Wacziarg, 2009. "A Monte Carlo study of growth regressions," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 14(2), pages 103-147, June.
    57. Robert J. Barro, 1999. "Determinants of Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(S6), pages 158-183, December.
    58. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    59. Oded Galor, 2011. "Unified Growth Theory," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9477.
    60. Oded Galor & David N. Weil, 1998. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition," Working Papers 98-3, Brown University, Department of Economics, revised 19 Aug 1998.
    61. David N. Weil & Oded Galor, 2000. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 806-828, September.
    62. Caselli, Francesco & Esquivel, Gerardo & Lefort, Fernando, 1996. "Reopening the Convergence Debate: A New Look at Cross-Country Growth Empirics," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 1(3), pages 363-389, September.
    63. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    64. Kevin H. O'Rourke & Jeffrey G. Williamson, 2001. "Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262650592, April.
    65. Bowsher, Clive G., 2002. "On testing overidentifying restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 211-220, October.
    66. Minier, Jenny A, 1998. "Democracy and Growth: Alternative Approaches," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 241-266, September.
    67. Philippe Aghion & Xavier Jaravel & Torsten Persson & Dorothée Rouzet, 2019. "Education and Military Rivalry," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 376-412.
    68. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    69. Windmeijer, Frank, 2005. "A finite sample correction for the variance of linear efficient two-step GMM estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 25-51, May.
    70. Ghada Fayad & Robert H. Bates, 2011. "Income and Democracy: Lipset’s Law Inverted," OxCarre Working Papers 061, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    71. Nazrul Islam, 1995. "Growth Empirics: A Panel Data Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(4), pages 1127-1170.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5m0od0o9jn9pqbdmos7fpt28hg is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5m0od0o9jn9pqbdmos7fpt28hg is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Che, Yi & Lu, Yi & Tao, Zhigang & Wang, Peng, 2013. "The impact of income on democracy revisited," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 159-169.
    4. Madsen, Jakob B. & Raschky, Paul A. & Skali, Ahmed, 2015. "Does democracy drive income in the world, 1500–2000?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 175-195.
    5. Stephen L. Parente & Luis Felipe Sáenz & Anna Seim, 2022. "Income, education and democracy," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 193-233, June.
    6. Piergiuseppe Fortunato & Ugo Panizza, 2015. "Democracy, education and the quality of government," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 333-363, December.
    7. Jooste, Charl & Liu, Guangling (Dave) & Naraidoo, Ruthira, 2013. "Analysing the effects of fiscal policy shocks in the South African economy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 215-224.
    8. Carolyn Chisadza & Manoel Bittencourt, 2014. "Is Democracy Eluding Sub-Saharan Africa?," Working Papers 201403, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    9. Nouha Bougharriou & Walid Benayed & Foued Badr Gabsi, 2019. "Education and democracy in the Arab world," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 139-155, May.
    10. Hugo J. Faria & Hugo M. Montesinos-Yufa & Daniel R. Morales, 2014. "Should the Modernization Hypothesis Survive Acemoglu, Johnson, Robinson, and Yared? Some More Evidence," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 11(1), pages 17-36, January.
    11. Manoel Bittencourt, 2012. "Yet Another Look at the Modernisation Hypothesis: Evidence from Latin America," Working Papers 201205, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    12. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Kotschy, Rainer & Prettner, Klaus & Schünemann, Johannes, 2024. "Health and economic growth: Reconciling the micro and macro evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    13. Jorge Braga Macedo & Joaquim Oliveira Martins & João Tovar Jalles, 2021. "Globalization, Freedoms and Economic convergence: an empirical exploration of a trivariate relationship using a large panel," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 605-629, July.
    14. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2019. "Democracy Does Cause Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 47-100.
    15. Castelló-Climent, Amparo, 2008. "On the distribution of education and democracy," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 179-190, October.
    16. Uwe Sunde, 2006. "Wirtschaftliche Entwicklung und Demokratie – Ist Demokratie ein Wohlstandsmotor oder ein Wohlstandsprodukt?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 7(4), pages 471-499, November.
    17. Elias Papaioannou & Gregorios Siourounis, 2008. "Democratisation and Growth," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(532), pages 1520-1551, October.
    18. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2016. "Democracy and growth: Evidence from a machine learning indicator," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(S), pages 85-107.
    19. Sima, Di & Huang, Fali, 2023. "Is democracy good for growth? — Development at political transition time matters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    20. Braunfels, Elias, 2014. "How do Political and Economic Institutions Affect Each Other?," Discussion Paper Series in Economics 19/2014, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Economics.
    21. Doris A. Oberdabernig & Stefan Humer & Jesus Crespo Cuaresma, 2018. "Democracy, Geography and Model Uncertainty," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 65(2), pages 154-185, May.
    22. Heid, Benedikt & Langer, Julian & Larch, Mario, 2012. "Income and democracy: Evidence from system GMM estimates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 166-169.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democracy; Modernization; Human Capital; GMM;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

    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:hal:journl:hal-03460288. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.