Income and Democracy
Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, James A. Robinson and Pierre Yared
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| Article Citation |
Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson, James A. Robinson, and Pierre Yared. 2008. "Income and Democracy." American Economic Review, 98(3): 808–42.
DOI:10.1257/aer.98.3.808
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| Abstract |
Existing studies establish a strong cross-country correlation between income
and democracy but do not control for factors that simultaneously affect both
variables. We show that controlling for such factors by including country
fixed effects removes the statistical association between income per
capita and various measures of democracy. We present
instrumental-variables estimates that also show no causal effect of income
on democracy. The cross-country correlation between income and democracy
reflects a positive correlation between changes in income and democracy
over the past 500 years. This pattern is consistent with the idea that
societies embarked on divergent political-economic development paths at
certain critical junctures.
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| Article Full-Text Access |
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| Additional Materials |
Link to Data Set
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| Authors |
Acemoglu, Daron (MIT)
Johnson, Simon (MIT and International Monetary Fund)
Robinson, James A. (Harvard U)
Yared, Pierre (Columbia U)
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| JEL Classifications |
D72: Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
O47: Measurement of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
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