A Forced Hand?: Democracy, Dictatorship, and the Regulation of Entry.

Start-up firms must overcome various obstacles to legal operations. As these regulations often limit economic development, the paper treats lower entry regulation as a public good. In this vein, I test the relationship between democratic institutions and the regulatory barriers to entry. I find that there is no statistical difference between democracies and dictatorship in entry regulation. Additionally, regime stability does not play a statistical role. Legal origin, however, achieves significance and provides a direction for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]