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Young Democracies and Government Size: Evidence from South America

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  • Manoel Bittencourt

Abstract

We investigate in this paper the hypothesis that when democracies are young, or still fragile and unconsolidated, the size of government tends to increase, predictably in an attempt of redistribution, or to buy out the electorate, so that democracy becomes acceptable and “the only game in town”. For that we use a sample of all […]

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  • Manoel Bittencourt, 2018. "Young Democracies and Government Size: Evidence from South America," Working Papers 329, Economic Research Southern Africa.
    • Handle: RePEc:rza:wpaper:329
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    advanced economies; Democracy; government;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • N16 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

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