TY - JOUR
T1 - Comparative democracy
T2 - The economic development thesis
AU - Burkhart, Ross E.
AU - Lewis Beck, Michael S.
PY - 1994/12
Y1 - 1994/12
N2 - In comparative politics, an established finding—that economic development fosters democratic performance—has recently come under challenge. We counter this challenge with a dynamic pooled time series analysis of a major, but neglected data set from 131 nations. The final generalized least squares-autoregressive moving averages estimates (N = 2,096) appear robust and indicate strong economic development effects, dependent in part on the nation's position in the world system. For the first time, rather hard evidence is offered on the causal relationship between economics and democracy. According to Granger tests, economic development “causes” democracy, but democracy does not “cause” economic development. Overall, the various tests would seem to advance sharply the modeling of democratic performance.
AB - In comparative politics, an established finding—that economic development fosters democratic performance—has recently come under challenge. We counter this challenge with a dynamic pooled time series analysis of a major, but neglected data set from 131 nations. The final generalized least squares-autoregressive moving averages estimates (N = 2,096) appear robust and indicate strong economic development effects, dependent in part on the nation's position in the world system. For the first time, rather hard evidence is offered on the causal relationship between economics and democracy. According to Granger tests, economic development “causes” democracy, but democracy does not “cause” economic development. Overall, the various tests would seem to advance sharply the modeling of democratic performance.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84974379767&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2307/2082715
DO - 10.2307/2082715
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84974379767
SN - 0003-0554
VL - 88
SP - 903
EP - 910
JO - Department of Political Science Publications
JF - Department of Political Science Publications
IS - 4
ER -