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Curse of Democracy: Evidence from the 21st Century

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  • Yusuke Narita
  • Ayumi Sudo

Abstract

Democracy is widely believed to contribute to economic growth and public health in the 20th and earlier centuries. We find that this conventional wisdom is reversed in this century, i.e., democracy has persistent negative impacts on GDP growth during 2001-2020. This finding emerges from five different instrumental variable strategies. Our analysis suggests that democracies cause slower growth through less investment and trade. For 2020, democracy is also found to cause more deaths from Covid-19.

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  • Yusuke Narita & Ayumi Sudo, 2021. "Curse of Democracy: Evidence from the 21st Century," Papers 2104.07617, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2021.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2104.07617
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