The paper considers the transformation of the political system as countries pass through the Grand Transition from a poor developing country to a wealthy developed country. In the process most countries change from an authoritarian to a democratic political system. This is shown by using the...

We consider the empirical relevance of two opposing hypotheses on the causality between income and democracy: The Democratic Transition claims that rising incomes cause a transition to democracy, whereas the Critical Junctures hypothesis denies this causal relation. Our empirical strategy is...