Where Capacity and Incentives Meet: Presidential Decree Authority and Property Rights in Latin America

Abstract

Scholars have long suggested a relationship between democracy, capitalistic economies, and the protection of property rights. Yet this link has been contested by a variety of scholars. We test whether a relationship between property rights, measured as risk of expropriation of property, and measures of presidential authority, exists. Where institutional design presents presidents with the capacity and incentives to act on predatory desires, we expect an impact on property rights protections. The empirical results from 17 Latin American countries over a 15-year time period suggest that executive authority helps explain changes in the risk of property expropriation in ways that regime type do not.