This introduction to a special issue of the Review of Development Economics provides a contextual setting to a collection of articles that originated in a conference on "Democracy, Participation, and Development" that was sponsored by the Program in Economic Policy Management (PEPM) at Columbia...

The paper examines how democracy affects long-run growth by influencing the quality of governance. Empirical evidence is first presented showing that measures of the quality of governance are substantially higher in more democratic countries. A general-equilibrium, endogenous growth model is...