Publication: Political Institutions and Human Development : Does Democracy Fulfill its 'Constructive' and 'Instrumental' Role?
Date
2009-01-01
ISSN
Published
2009-01-01
Author(s)
Vollmer, Sebastian
Ziegler, Maria
Abstract
Institutions are a major field of
interest in the study of development processes. The authors
contribute to this discussion concentrating our research on
political institutions and their effect on the non-income
dimensions of human development. First, they elaborate a
theoretical argument why and under what conditions
democracies compared to autocratic political systems might
perform better with regards to the provision of public
goods. Due to higher redistributive concerns matched to the
needs of the population democracies should show a higher
level of human development. In the following they analyze
whether our theoretical expectations are supported by
empirical facts. The authors perform a static panel analysis
over the period of 1970 to 2003. The model confirms that
living in a democratic system positively affects human
development measured by life expectancy and literacy rates
even controlling for GDP. By analyzing interaction effects
they find that the performance of democracy is rather
independent of the circumstances. However, democracy leads
to more redistribution in favor of health provision in more
unequal societies.
Citation
“Vollmer, Sebastian; Ziegler, Maria. 2009. Political Institutions and Human Development : Does Democracy Fulfill its 'Constructive' and 'Instrumental' Role?. Policy Research working paper ; no. WPS 4818. © http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/4015 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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