Democracy as a driver of post-communist economic development

Abstract

This study revisits the potential effect of democracy on economic development in a broad sample of countries, and also separately in a subsample of post-communist countries. The results are reassuring: democracy has a robustly positive impact on economic growth, and also on key factors of economic growth-investment in physical and human capital. Moreover, the sustained level of democracy, embodied in accumulated democratic capital, especially robustly correlates with economic development. When comparing the relative roles of democracy and economic freedom, democracy takes primacy in the global sample while both democracy and economic freedom seems to play important roles in the subsample of post-communist countries.