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Democracy and Reforms: Evidence from a New Dataset

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  • Mr. Antonio Spilimbergo
  • Ms. Paola Giuliano
  • Ms. Prachi Mishra

Abstract

Empirical evidence on the relationship between democracy and economic reforms is limited to few reforms, countries, and years. This paper studies the impact of democracy on the adoption of economic reforms using a new dataset on reforms in the financial, capital and banking sectors, product markets, agriculture, and trade for 150 countries over the period 1960 - 2004. Democracy has a positive and significant impact on the adoption of economic reforms but there is no evidence that economic reforms foster democracy. Our results are robust to the inclusion of a large variety of controls and estimation strategies.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Antonio Spilimbergo & Ms. Paola Giuliano & Ms. Prachi Mishra, 2010. "Democracy and Reforms: Evidence from a New Dataset," IMF Working Papers 2010/173, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2010/173
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP; democracy; country; Lagged democracy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries

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