INFLUENCE OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS ON ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD

Abstract

The authors investigate the issue of the interdependence of political institutions and economic growth rates in the post-crisis period of 2010-2018. The article presents an extensive review of scientific research on the impact of democratization on the development of different countries and identifies conceptual positions that create interdisciplinary discourse: democracy promotes growth, democracy does not promote growth, growth promotes democracy, growth does not promote democracy. The analysis of the interdependence of political institutions and economic growth was made based on the indicators of the 100 largest economies in the world in terms of GDP (PPP). To measure the quality of political institutions, the indicators of the country’s average score in the Democracy Index (2010-2018) and the country’s average position in the Corruption Perceptions Index are used. The country’s economic growth rates are calculated as arithmetic mean indicators for 2010-2018 based on World Bank data. A comparative analysis of the variables shows that, in general, countries with low indicators of the quality of political institutions achieved economic growth rates above the world average, while countries with high quality political institutions suffer from slow development. The authors came to the conclusion that in the medium term, a high level of democratization of states does not lead to significant economic growth: full democracies contribute to consistently low rates of economic development, defective democracies are more predisposed to achieving economic growth, hybrid regimes are the most conducive to achieving high growth rates, authoritarian regimes have mixed effects on growth, but some are rapidly evolving. Democratization helps to increase the rate of economic growth to a certain level – the “turning point”, which confirms the hypothesis of R. Barro. High levels of corruption are not an insurmountable obstacle to economic growth, which contradicts the generally accepted ideas about the unambiguously negative nature of this phenomenon. The research results contribute to the scientific discussion about the dependence of economic growth on the quality of institutions. The conclusions reveal a clash between the concepts of democratization based on liberal values on the one side and modernization, which is the effectiveness of economic growth and development, on the other