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Are Democracies Cleaner?

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  • Kammerlander, Andreas
  • Schulze, Günther G.

Abstract

We inquire whether democracies enjoy lower pollution levels than autocracies by investigating the ‘clean democracy hypothesis’, which posits that democracies have a more demand-determined policy formation leading to more stringent environmental policies. We test this hypothesis with a large data set covering 137 countries and the period 1970–2012 using eleven different air pollutants as endogenous variables and a wide range of control variables measuring democracy, development stage, globalization, and factor endowments. We find no consistent evidence that democracies are cleaner, not even the richer ones, which casts doubt on the validity of single pollutants studies. Numerous checks show the robustness of our results.

Suggested Citation

  • Kammerlander, Andreas & Schulze, Günther G., 2020. "Are Democracies Cleaner?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:64:y:2020:i:c:s0176268020300689
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2020.101920
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    Cited by:

    1. Nicolae Stef & Sami Ben Jabeur, 2023. "Elections and Environmental Quality," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 84(2), pages 593-625, February.
    2. Andreas Kammerlander, 2022. "Economic Growth and Pollution in different Political Regimes," Discussion Paper Series 43, Department of International Economic Policy, University of Freiburg, revised Oct 2022.
    3. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2021. "Using Machine Learning for measuring democracy: A practitioners guide and a new updated dataset for 186 countries from 1919 to 2019," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    4. Michaela Vourvoulia & Athanasios Kampas, 2024. "Are democratic regime and the magnitude of the informal economy robust determinants of human impacts on the environment? An extreme bounds analysis," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 611-629, March.
    5. Gourley, Patrick & Khamis, Melanie, 2023. "It is not easy being a Green party: Green politics as a normal good," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democracy; Cooperation; Coordination; Environmental policy; Pollution; Globalization; Environmental kuznets curve; Clean democracy hypothesis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q53 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Air Pollution; Water Pollution; Noise; Hazardous Waste; Solid Waste; Recycling
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • P51 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Analysis of Economic Systems
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities

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