Political Replacement and Property Rights.

Economic institutions such as property rights are regularly characterized as the fundamental cause of material prosperity. Much less attention is devoted to understanding the origins of secure property rights. Only recently have theoretical models attempted to explain the political conditions that affect the emergence of strong property rights systems. This paper provides the first empirical test of one recent argument focusing on the role of political replacement of leaders. Specifically, the paper describes non-monotonic effects of the likelihood of political replacement on the strength of property rights. Then, drawing on data that measure the turnover of leaders in democratic and autocratic regimes, the paper creates a new measure of the likelihood of political replacement. Finally, the paper evaluates the impact on property rights using cross-sectional and panel data. The findings suggest that property rights are more secure when the likelihood of democratic political replacement is highest and extra-constitutional replacement is lowest. The conclusion contextualizes these results in terms of contemporary political economy theory. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]