Endogenous Democratization

2003 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carles Boix ◽  
Susan C. Stokes

The authors show that economic development increases the probability that a country will undergo a transition to democracy. These results contradict the finding of Przeworski and his associates, that development causes democracy to last but not to come into existence in the first place. By dealing adequately with problems of sample selection and model specification, the authors discover that economic growth does cause nondemocracies to democratize. They show that the effect of economic development on the probability of a transition to democracy in the hundred years between the mid-nineteenth century and World War II was substantial, indeed, even stronger than its effect on democratic stability. They also show that, in more recent decades, some countries that developed but remained dictatorships would, because of their development, be expected to democratize in as few as three years after achieving a per capita income of $12,000 per capita.

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (4I-II) ◽  
pp. 301-312
Author(s):  
Daron Acemoglu

First of all, it is a great pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Given that communicating from a far is not the easiest thing to do, what I have decided to do is to give a quick overview of the arguments that have emerged from the book that James and I wrote. In fact, this book is a synthesis of about 16 years of research that James and I did. I think it is fair to say that a lot of economic development and economic growth is motivated by patterns that are reported in the book. In particular, this is data from Angus Madison’s life’s work, which is not entirely uncontroversial, but the overall pattern here is fairly uncontroversial. The patterns that we observe have actually been in the background of many attempts to understand long patterns of economic development. I think they also point out that it is going to be very difficult to understand why certain parts of the world that were either on par with, say, Asia, in particular the Indian Subcontinent and China, have increased their income per capita and their prosperity so much in 500 years leading to today, particularly from the period around early 1800s to essentially to the end of the World War II, where there is this big divergence taking place. The trends in economic development show that United States of America, Canada, New Zealand and Australia have pulled so much ahead of, say, Asia, where both India, the Indian Subcontinent in this case, and China more or less show the same picture, where there is not much growth going on until the end of the World War II.


2018 ◽  
pp. 184-203
Author(s):  
Şevket Pamuk

This chapter explains how the period 1913 to 1950 was exceptionally difficult for Turkey. The country had to deal with the difficulties of the transition from being part of a larger empire to becoming a nation-state within new borders. Available data suggest income per capita declined by as much as 40 percent during World War I and remained depressed until the end of the War of Independence in 1922. Per capita incomes then increased rapidly in the 1920s and caught up with their pre-World War I levels and may have even slightly exceeded them by 1929. They then fell sharply, by more than 30 percent during World War II. Given these very large fluctuations in per capita income, it makes a big difference which end years are used in calculating the average growth rates for this period.


Author(s):  
Şevket Pamuk

This chapter examines the interaction between economic growth, the leading social actors, the state, and the global economic system in Turkey. The country’s long-term record in economic growth and human development has been close to world averages and a little above developing country averages. Turkey has experienced serious difficulties in establishing a pluralistic, open, and stable political system since 1950. While class cleavages have always mattered, equally important have been identity cleavages at both the societal and elite levels, most importantly between secularists and Islamists and between Turkish and Kurdish nationalists. These cleavages had negative consequences for state capacity and its ability to implement rules-based economic policies. The recurring tensions between the competing elites, the mixed outcomes associated with state interventionism, and the periods of political instability have made it difficult to attain a stronger record of economic development.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Şevket Pamuk

This introductory chapter demonstrates how Turkey's performance in economic growth and human development has been a little above but close to developing-country and world averages. Turkey's political system was opened to greater participation and competition after World War II with the transition to a multiparty system which gave greater voice and power to average citizens. Turkey's formal economic institutions and economic policies also experienced a great deal of change during the last two centuries. The chapter shows that many of these institutional changes were designed to and did lead to increases in per capita income and improvements in human development. The latter part of the chapter provides an overview of the book.


2021 ◽  
Vol 116 ◽  
pp. 00072
Author(s):  
Mikhail Savelyev ◽  
Mikhail Kozyrev ◽  
Andrey Savchenko ◽  
Vladimir Koretsky ◽  
Rail Galiakhmetov

By the case of the economic development of Great Britain, the hypothesis was verified that innovations at the macroeconomic level should accelerate economic growth and at the same time reduce development risks, stabilizing this growth, reducing its fluctuations under the influence of market factors. The economic development of Great Britain is investigated in 25 economic cycles for the period from 1830-2020. Economic development was investigated according to the parameters of economic growth and development risk in each of the considered cycles. Four types of economic development policy are theoretically described in terms of the dynamics of changes in growth and risk between the previous and subsequent cycles including progressive, regressive, aggressive and conservative. In relation to the identified periods of progressive development policy in Great Britain, the institutional innovations that led to this type of development were investigated. Among them was the great economic reform of the early Victorian era, the course of social or new liberalism and the popular budget before the First World War, the activities of the first Labor government immediately after this war, economic recovery after World War II in combination with the Marshall plan and nationalization, the era of the Conservatives and the politics of New Labor at the end of the 20th century. The study showed that the implementation of authentic national culture and institutions complementary to the existing authentic culture institutions of institutional innovations leads to a simultaneous decrease in the risk of development and acceleration of economic growth, which can be considered the most favorable policy of macroeconomic management of entrepreneurial activity in order to accelerate the application of technical and commercial innovations.


1979 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bent Hansen

The attempt to estimate per capita income for Egypt from 1886/1887 to 1937, presented in this paper, is part of an effort to evaluate British colonial economic policyduring the period of the British occupation of Egypt. For such an evaluation national income estimates covering the whole period would be very helpful. National income estimates worth the name, however, go back only to 1935–1939, and for years earlier than the 1950s they are of very poor quality. Compared with so many other lessdeveloped countries, Egypt has relatively rich statistics extending backward to the decades before World War I; but they do not really suffice for building up a national income series from either the production or the expenditure side, and from the income side there is hardly any information. In this situation, which both development economists and economic historians know only too well, the problem is how to make maximal use of existing production and expenditure indicators in order to come out with some idea of what per capita income developments may have looked like. Apart from gauging per capita income in Egypt during half a century before World War II, the paper serves more generally to illustrate a methodology that may find application for other countries.


1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wong Lin Ken

Once the premier port in colonial Southeast Asia and one of the foremost in the British Empire, Singapore now ranks as the world's fourth busiest port, tonnagewise, with the second highest per capita G.D.P. in Asia. Its post-war achievements rest on solid historical advantages. A broad historical survey of its commercial growth before World War II is therefore not amiss: the more so, as there has been no such panoramic presentation before. With no natural resources, Singapore's economic growth was almost synonymous with its foreign trade. In most historical works, especially those written before World War II, Singapore has been treated as an integral part of the Straits Settlements or British Malaya, for, until its emergence as a separate nation in August 1965, Singapore as the focal point of reference for researches was not part of the historical consciousness.


Author(s):  
Robert L. Tignor

This introduction provides an overview of W. Arthur Lewis's biography. Three considerations that surfaced so forcefully in the aftermath of the World War II—decolonization, race relations, and economic growth—were preeminent issues in the life of W. Arthur Lewis. As a person of color who grew up in an impoverished and largely ignored corner of the British Empire, he devoted much of his academic career and public life to elucidating these matters and promoting a vision of a decolonized, color-blind, and prosperous community of independent nations. Lewis's contributions to the field of development economics were significant and pioneering and made him the founding figure of a wholly new branch of economics in the 1950s. His 1954 article on economic development using unlimited supplies of labor, published in Manchester School, was arguably the single most influential essay in this field.


Author(s):  
Paul Dalziel ◽  
J. W. Nevile

There was much in common in the development of post-Keynesian economics in Australia and New Zealand, but there were also many differences. Both countries shared a common heritage in higher education. In the first twenty-five years after World War II, both countries adopted broadly Keynesian policies and experienced very low levels of unemployment. Increasingly over these years more theorizing about macroeconomic policy had what now would be called a post-Keynesian content, but this label was not used till after the event. In both countries, apart from one important factor, the experience of actual monetary policy and theorizing about it were similar. Keynesian ideas were more rapidly adopted in Australia than in many other countries. Not surprisingly for a couple of decades after 1936, analysis of policy and its application was Keynesian rather than post-Keynesian, with fiscal policy playing the major role. The conduct of both monetary and fiscal policy depends on the theory of inflation. This chapter examines post-Keynesian economics in Australasia, focusing on aggregate demand, economic growth, and income distribution policy.


1982 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 395-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald C. Newton

Between 1933 and the end of World War II, Argentina became the home of some 43,000 Jewish refugees from Nazism, almost all of them of German, Austrian, or West European origin. Measured against the country's total population, 13 million in 1931, 16 million according to the 1947 census, Argentina received more Jewish refugees per capita than any other country in the world except Palestine (Wasserstein, 1979: 7,45). This did not occur by design of the Argentine government; on the contrary, its immigration policies became interestingly restrictive as the years of the world crisis wore on.In practice, however, Argentina was unable to patrol effectively its long borders with the neighboring republics of Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, and Uruguay. The overseas consuls of these nations, especially the first three, did a brisk and lucrative trade in visas and entry permits for persons desperate to escape the Nazi terror.


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