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I present a business case for democracy, focusing on the impact of democracy on economic growth. This relationship is widely studied, and results have been less robust for growth than many other development outcomes such as literacy or infant mortality. I discuss four factors pertaining to data quality and modelling choices, suggesting that several previous studies have underestimated the growth-benefits of democracy. I further discuss the relationships between democracy and economic crises and variation in economic performance. By mitigating abysmal economic outcomes and ensuring more stable performance, democracy is generally of benefit to risk-averse entrepreneurs, investors, workers, and consumers alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We revisit the hypothesis that a Weberian bureaucracy enhances economic growth. Theoretically, we develop arguments for why such a bureaucracy may enhance growth and discuss plausible counterarguments. Empirically, we use new measures capturing various Weberian features in countries across the world, with some time series extending back to 1789. The evidence base from previous large- N studies is surprisingly thin, but our extensive data enable us to move beyond the problematic cross-country correlations used in previous studies. Hence, we conduct tests that control for country-specific characteristics while ensuring sufficient variation on the slow-moving bureaucracy variables to enable precise estimation. Our analysis suggests that previous cross-country regressions have vastly overstated the strength of the relationship. While this casts uncertainty on the proposition that there is an effect of Weberian bureaucracy on growth, our further analysis suggests that—if an effect exists—it may operate in the short term and be stronger in recent decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We argue that women's political empowerment (WPE) should enhance economic growth, by facilitating technological innovation. • We find robust evidence that WPE is positively related to subsequent GDP per capita growth, across 182 countries and 221 years. • The estimated relationship is sizeable: Improvements in WPE correspond to large long-runs gains in economic development. • Consistent with our proposed mechanism, WPE is also robustly related to total factor productivity growth, a proxy for technological change We investigate whether and how women's political empowerment relates to technological change, the main driver of long-term economic growth. We argue that three aspects of empowerment – descriptive representation, civil liberties protection, and civil society participation – advance technological change and thereby economic growth through (a) increasing the number and variability of new ideas introduced in the economy and (b) improving the selection of more efficient ideas. Drawing on data from 182 countries and 221 years, we test various implications from our argument. Women's political empowerment is positively related to subsequent economic growth. This relationship persists across various model specifications and when accounting for different potential confounders. The three sub-components of empowerment are also, individually, related to growth, although not as strongly as the aggregated concept. The relationship is retained across different contexts, but is clearer for "Non-Western" countries and in earlier time periods. We also find evidence that women's political empowerment enhances technological change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper discusses how regime type and state capacity may interact in affecting economic growth. The empirical analysis finds a positive and robust effect of democracy on growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, a continent historically characterized by weak-capacity states. Furthermore, the paper identifies a robust interaction effect between democracy and state capacity on growth, both in Africa and globally; the effect of democracy on growth increases when state capacity is reduced. Democracy is estimated to have a positive effect on growth in weak-capacity states, but not in high-capacity states. Additionally, the results indicate that state capacity enhances growth only in dictatorships. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Electoral rules and form of government have important economic effects, for example on taxation and public spending. However, there are no robust results in the literature when it comes to their effect on economic growth. This paper investigates whether electoral rules and form of government affects economic growth by applying panel data techniques on a very extensive dataset. There is no robust effect of presidentialism or parliamentarism on growth. However, there is very robust evidence for a positive, and quite substantial, effect of Proportional Representation (PR) electoral rules on economic growth. This is partly due to PR systems’ propensity to generate broad-interest policies, like universal education spending, property rights protection and free-trade, rather than special interest economic policies. Also semi-proportional systems seem to enhance growth relative to plural-majoritarian systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper discusses the hypothesis that democracy hurts economic growth and development, also known as the Lee thesis, and discusses why one could expect dictatorship to be particularly beneficial for growth in the Asian context. Three general theoretical arguments in support of the Lee thesis are then presented. However, the empirical results, based on panel data analysis on more than 20 Asian countries, do not support the hypothesis that dictatorship increases economic growth in Asia. There is no significant, average effect of democracy on growth. Asian dictatorships do invest a larger fraction of their GDP than democracies, but they are worse at generating high enrollment ratios in education after primary school. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]