Does inequality harm growth only in democracies? A replication and extension

Knack, Stephen and Keefer, Philip (1996): Does inequality harm growth only in democracies? A replication and extension. Published in: American Journal of Political Science , Vol. 41, No. 1 (January 1997): pp. 323-332.

Abstract

We reconstruct a dataset used by Persson and Tabellini (AER, 1994) to test the robustness of their finding that inequality reduces income growth, but only in democracies. We find that their result is highly sensitive to the use of data sources on both democracy and inequality. When we substitute more commonly-used and higher-quality data sources for democracy and inequality, their key result disappears.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: inequality, democracy, growth
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement; D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D72 - Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior; P - Economic Systems > P4 - Other Economic Systems > P48 - Political Economy ; Legal Institutions ; Property Rights ; Natural Resources ; Energy ; Environment ; Regional Studies

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