Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP6691
Authors: Markus Brckner; Antonio Ciccone
Abstract: According to the economic approach to political transitions, negative transitory economic shocks can give rise to a window of opportunity for democratic change. We examine this hypothesis using yearly rainfall variation over the 1980-2004 period in 41 Sub-Saharan African countries. We find that a 25% drop in rainfall increases the probability of a transition to democracy during the following two years by around 3 percentage points. A 5% fall in income due to low rainfall raises the probability of democratization by around 7 percentage points. We also find that rainfall does not affect transitions from democracy to autocracy.
Keywords: Democratization; Transitory Economic Shocks
JEL Codes: O0; P0
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Probability of transitioning from autocracy to democracy (P39) | Democratization (O17) |
| Rainfall (Q54) | Probability of transitioning from autocracy to democracy (P39) |
| Decrease in income due to low rainfall (Q54) | Probability of democratization (D79) |
| Rainfall (Q54) | Income deviations from trend (D31) |