Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity
According to the economic approach to political transitions, transitory negative economic shocks can open a window of opportunity for democratic improvement. Testing the theory requires a source of transitory shocks to the aggregate economy. We use rainfall shocks in Sub-Saharan African countries and find that negative rainfall shocks are followed by significant improvement in democratic institutions. Instrumental variables estimates indicate that following a transitory negative income shock of 1 percent, democracy scores improve by 0.9 percentage points and the probability of a democratic transition increases by 1.3 percentage points.
Year of publication: |
2009-12
|
---|---|
Authors: | Brückner, Markus ; Ciccone, Antonio |
Institutions: | FEDEA |
Saved in:
freely available
Saved in favorites
Similar items by person
-
Oil Price Shocks, Income, and Democracy
Brückner, Markus, (2013)
-
International Commodity Prices, Growth, and the Outbreak of Civil War in Sub-Saharan Africa
Brückner, Markus, (2009)
-
Efectos de género en las escuelas, un enfoque basado en cohortes de edad
Ciccone, Antonio, (2013)
- More ...