Democracy to Decline
Do democratic changes jeopardize economic growth?
Thomas Coleman
Excellent Dissertation Prize,
MSc Development Management (2014)
Abstract
This paper investigates the relationship between political changes towards democracy and sudden growth slowdowns. Expanding the work of Eichengreen, Park and Shin (2013), the paper employs a probit regression analysis of 167 economies and determines that democratic changes are associated with slowdowns, while in certain cases, changes towards autocracy may lessen the likelihood of a slowdown. The results are robust to multiple sensitivity tests and fit with theoretical knowledge regarding the negative effects of democracy on economic performance. Finally, the paper obtains evidence that a country’s accumulated history of democracy may be an important determinate of sudden growth slowdowns.
Keywords
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Economic growth
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Democracy
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Slowdowns
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Regression
Download the dissertation here.