IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/poleco/v83y2024ics017626802400034x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Income, growth, and democracy looking for the main causal directions in the nexus

Author

Listed:
  • Paldam, Martin

Abstract

The development of the political system of countries is noisy, but in the longer run a strong relation to the economy emerges in the cross-country data for income, growth, and the main democracy indices. Two main theories explain these relations: (α) starts from the strong correlation between income and democracy, seeing income as the causal variable. It is the democratic transition, which is the political part of the theory of the grand transition. (β) starts from the much weaker correlation between democracy and economic growth, seeing democracy as the causal variable. This is a part of the primacy-of-institutions theory, where the political system is a key institution. The discussion needs (λ) a link-relation between growth and income. It connects the (α) and (β) theories, so that one may explain the other. The analysis looks at all six possible univariate relations between the three variables using kernel regressions on a large, unified data set. This method gives a clear picture. The strong α-relation can indeed explain the weak β-relation as spurious, but the weak β-relation predicts that the α-relation is very weak. Thus, (α) encompasses (β), but not vice versa.

Suggested Citation

  • Paldam, Martin, 2024. "Income, growth, and democracy looking for the main causal directions in the nexus," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:83:y:2024:i:c:s017626802400034x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102532
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S017626802400034X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2024.102532?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daron Acemoglu & Suresh Naidu & Pascual Restrepo & James A. Robinson, 2019. "Democracy Does Cause Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(1), pages 47-100.
    2. Paldam,Martin, 2021. "The Grand Pattern of Development and the Transition of Institutions," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781316515501, January.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson & Pierre Yared, 2008. "Income and Democracy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 808-842, June.
    4. Colagrossi, Marco & Rossignoli, Domenico & Maggioni, Mario A., 2020. "Does democracy cause growth? A meta-analysis (of 2000 regressions)," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    5. Gundlach, Erich & Paldam, Martin, 2020. "A hump-shaped transitional growth path as a general pattern in long-run development," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    6. Paldam, Martin, 2018. "A model of the representative economist, as researcher and policy advisor," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 5-15.
    7. John P. A. Ioannidis & T. D. Stanley & Hristos Doucouliagos, 2017. "The Power of Bias in Economics Research," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(605), pages 236-265, October.
    8. Lipset, Seymour Martin, 1959. "Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 53(1), pages 69-105, March.
    9. Robert E. Lucas, 2009. "Trade and the Diffusion of the Industrial Revolution," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 1-25, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Antonio Savoia & Kunal Sen & Abrams M.E. Tagem, 2024. "Institutional change and persistence: What does the long-run evidence tell us?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2024-39, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hyungmin Park, 2024. "Theory of developmental dictatorship," Discussion Papers 2024-10, Nottingham Interdisciplinary Centre for Economic and Political Research (NICEP).
    2. Colagrossi, Marco & Rossignoli, Domenico & Maggioni, Mario A., 2020. "Does democracy cause growth? A meta-analysis (of 2000 regressions)," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. Sima, Di & Huang, Fali, 2023. "Is democracy good for growth? — Development at political transition time matters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    4. Jorge Braga Macedo & Joaquim Oliveira Martins & João Tovar Jalles, 2021. "Globalization, Freedoms and Economic convergence: an empirical exploration of a trivariate relationship using a large panel," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 605-629, July.
    5. Erich Gundlach & Martin Paldam, 2016. "Socioeconomic transitions as common dynamic processes," Economics Working Papers 2016-06, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    6. Martin Paldam, 2023. "Meta‐mining: The political economy of meta‐analysis," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(1), pages 125-140, February.
    7. Park, Hyungmin, 2023. "Developmental Dictatorship and Middle Class-driven Democratisation," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1485, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    8. Marino, Maria & Donni, Paolo Li & Bavetta, Sebastiano & Cellini, Marco, 2020. "The democratization process: An empirical appraisal of the role of political protest," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Ofori, Isaac K. & Gbolonyo, Emmanuel Y. & Ojong, Nathanael, 2024. "Heterogeneous Effects of Frontier Technology Readiness on Economic Growth in Africa," MPRA Paper 121247, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Antonio Ciccone & Adilzhan Ismailov, 2022. "Rainfall, Agricultural Output and Persistent Democratization," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 89(354), pages 229-257, April.
    11. Alexander Kemnitz & Martin Roessler, 2023. "The effects of economic development on democratic institutions and repression in non-democratic regimes: theory and evidence," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 145-164, June.
    12. Krenz, Astrid, 2016. "Do political institutions influence international trade? Measurement of institutions and the Long-Run effects," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 276, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    13. Gutmann, Jerg & Voigt, Stefan, 2018. "The rule of law: Measurement and deep roots," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 68-82.
    14. Gründler, Klaus & Krieger, Tommy, 2022. "Should we care (more) about data aggregation?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    15. Luca Farè & David B. Audretsch & Marcus Dejardin, 2023. "Does democracy foster entrepreneurship?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(4), pages 1461-1495, December.
    16. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Gerard Roland, 2021. "Culture, institutions and democratization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 187(1), pages 165-195, April.
    17. Brieger Stefan & Markwardt Gunther, 2020. "The Democracy–Economy-Nexus," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 71(2), pages 135-167, August.
    18. Astrid Krenz & Ana Abeliansky, 2015. "Democracy and Trade—Evidence along the Distribution of Trading Activity," EcoMod2015 8750, EcoMod.
    19. Antonis Adam & Sofia Tsarsitalidou, 2018. "Do democracies have higher current account deficits?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(1), pages 40-68, March.
    20. Rajius Idzalika & Thomas Kneib & Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso, 2019. "The effect of income on democracy revisited a flexible distributional approach," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 1207-1230, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Democratic transition; Primacy-of-institutions;

    JEL classification:

    • O10 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - General
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:83:y:2024:i:c:s017626802400034x. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505544 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.