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Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity
Author(s) -
Brückner Markus,
Ciccone Antonio
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
econometrica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 16.7
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1468-0262
pISSN - 0012-9682
DOI - 10.3982/ecta8183
Subject(s) - democracy , shock (circulatory) , economics , window of opportunity , politics , demographic economics , instrumental variable , development economics , econometrics , political science , real time computing , computer science , law , medicine
We show that democratic change may be triggered by transitory economic shocks. Our approach uses within‐country variation in rainfall as a source of transitory shocks to sub‐Saharan African economies. We find that negative rainfall shocks are followed by significant improvement in democratic institutions. This result is consistent with the economic approach to political transitions, where transitory negative shocks can open a window of opportunity for democratic improvement. Instrumental variables estimates indicate that following a transitory negative income shock of 1 percent, democracy scores improve by 0.9 percentage points and the probability of a democratic transition increases by 1.3 percentage points.