Robust Correlates of Growth Spells: Do Inequality and Redistribution Matter?

This article investigates the relationship between inequality, redistribution, and the duration of growth spells in the presence of a rich set of alternative determinants, by explicitly accounting for model uncertainty using model averaging for duration models. We find that lower net inequality is associated with longer growth spells. Redistribution does not appear to be correlated with the duration of growth spells. In addition, there is no evidence of nonlinearities in the inequality–redistribution–growth spell relationship. Finally, lower initial income, higher secondary education, and higher FDI are associated with longer spell duration.