Democracy and Reforms
The authors use a sample of 147 countries to investigate the link between democracy and reforms. Democracy may be conducive to reforms, because politicians have the incentive to embrace growth-enhancing reforms to win elections. By contrast, author...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20090210105038 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/4031 |
| Summary: | The authors use a sample of 147
countries to investigate the link between democracy and
reforms. Democracy may be conducive to reforms, because
politicians have the incentive to embrace growth-enhancing
reforms to win elections. By contrast, authoritarian regimes
do not have to worry as much about public opinion and may
undertake reforms that are painful in the short run but
bring future prosperity. This paper tests these hypotheses,
using data on micro-economic reforms from the World
Bank's Doing Business database. These data do not
suffer the endogeneity issues associated with other datasets
on changes in economic institutions. The results provide
robust support for the claim that democracy is good for
growth-enhancing reforms. |
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