eprintid: 17765
rev_number: 19
eprint_status: archive
userid: 600
dir: disk0/00/01/77/65
datestamp: 2009-11-06 17:50:38
lastmod: 2015-07-23 09:37:47
status_changed: 2009-11-06 17:50:38
type: working_paper
metadata_visibility: show
item_issues_count: 0
creators_name: Aghion, P.
creators_name: Alesina, A.
creators_name: Trebbi, F.
creators_id: PAGHI04
creators_id: 
creators_id: 
title: Democracy, technology, and growth
ispublished: pub
subjects: 12000
divisions: F24
abstract: We explore the question of how political institutions and particularly democracy affect economic growth. Although empirical evidence of a positive effect of democracy on economic performance in the aggregate is weak, we provide evidence that democracy influences productivity growth in different sectors differently and that this differential effect may be one of the reasons of the ambiguity of the aggregate results. We provide evidence that political rights are conducive to growth in more advanced sectors of an economy, while they do not matter or have a negative effect on growth in sectors far away from the technological frontier. One channel of explanation goes through the beneficial effects of democracy and political rights on the freedom of entry in markets. Overall, democracies tend to have much lower entry barriers than autocracies, because political accountability reduces the protection of vested interests, and entry in turn is known to be generally more growth-enhancing in sectors that are closer to the technological frontier. We present empirical evidence that supports this entry explanation.
date: 2007-06
publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
official_url: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13180
vfaculties: VSHS
oa_status: green
language: eng
primo: open
primo_central: open_green
lyricists_name: Aghion, P
lyricists_id: PAGHI04
full_text_status: public
series: NBER Working Papers
number: 13180
place_of_pub: Cambridge, US
citation:        Aghion, P.;    Alesina, A.;    Trebbi, F.;      (2007)    Democracy, technology, and growth.                    (NBER Working Papers  13180). National Bureau of Economic Research: Cambridge, US.       Green open access   
 
document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/17765/1/17765.pdf