Kiel Working Papers, Kiel Institute for World Economics
No 1410:
A Farewell to Critical Junctures: Sorting Out Long-run Causality of Income and Democracy
Erich Gundlach and Martin Paldam
Abstract: We consider the empirical relevance of two opposing
hypotheses on the causality between income and democracy: The Democratic
Transition claims that rising incomes cause a transi¬tion to democracy,
whereas the Critical Junctures hypothesis denies this causal relation. Our
empirical strategy is justified by Unified Growth Theory, which
hypothe¬sizes that the present international income differences have roots
in the prehistoric past. Thus, we use prehistoric measures of biogeography
as instruments for modern income levels, and find a large long-run causal
effect of income on the degree of democracy. This result rejects the
Critical Junctures hypothesis, which is an important part of the Primacy of
Institutions view
Keywords: Long-run growth, Democracy, Unified growth theory, biogeography; (follow links to similar papers)
JEL-Codes: B25,; O1; (follow links to similar papers)
26 pages, March 2008
Before downloading any of the electronic versions below
you should read our statement on
copyright.
Download GhostScript
for viewing Postscript files and the
Acrobat Reader for viewing and printing pdf files.
Downloadable files:
KWP_1410_EG-MP-Democracy_KWP_19%20Mar%2008.pdf
Download Statistics
Report other problems with accessing this service to Sune Karlsson ()
or Helena Lundin ().
Programing by
Design Joakim Ekebom