Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP8599
Authors: Fabrice Murtin; Romain Wacziarg
Abstract: Over the last two centuries, many countries experienced regime transitions toward democracy. We document this democratic transition over a long time horizon. We use historical time series of income, education and democracy levels from 1870 to 2000 to explore the economic factors associated with rising levels of democracy. We find that primary schooling, and to a weaker extent per capita income levels, are strong determinants of the quality of political institutions. We find little evidence of causality running the other way, from democracy to income or education.
Keywords: democracy; GMM; human capital; modernization
JEL Codes: I25; N30; N40; O43
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| primary schooling (A21) | democratic quality (D72) |
| per capita income (D31) | democratic quality (D72) |
| lagged income (E25) | democracy (D72) |
| democracy (D72) | education (I29) |
| democracy (D72) | income (E25) |