Reevaluating the Modernization Hypothesis

55 Pages Posted: 5 Sep 2007

See all articles by Daron Acemoglu

Daron Acemoglu

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Simon Johnson

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Entrepreneurship Center; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

James A. Robinson

Harvard University - Department of Government; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Pierre Yared

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Finance

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Date Written: August 28, 2007

Abstract

This paper revisits and critically reevaluates the widely-accepted modernization hypothesis which claims that per capita income causes the creation and the consolidation of democracy. We argue that existing studies and support for this hypothesis because they fail to control for the presence of omitted variables. There are many underlying historical factors that affect both the level of income per capita and the likelihood of democracy in a country, and failing to control for these factors may introduce a spurious relationship between income and democracy. We show that controlling for these historical factors by including fixed country effects removes the correlation between income and democracy, as well as the correlation between income and the likelihood of transitions to and from democratic regimes. We argue that this evidence is consistent with another well-established approach in political science, which emphasizes how events during critical historical junctures can lead to divergent political-economic development paths, some leading to prosperity and democracy, others to relative poverty and non-democracy. We present evidence in favor of this interpretation by documenting that the fixed effects we estimate in the post-war sample are strongly associated with historical variables that have previously been used to explain diverging development paths within the former colonial world.

Keywords: democracy, economic growth, institutions, political development

JEL Classification: P16, O10

Suggested Citation

Acemoglu, Daron and Johnson, Simon and Robinson, James A. and Yared, Pierre, Reevaluating the Modernization Hypothesis (August 28, 2007). MIT Department of Economics Working Paper No. 07-23, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1011071 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1011071

Daron Acemoglu (Contact Author)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics ( email )

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Simon Johnson

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Entrepreneurship Center ( email )

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James A. Robinson

Harvard University - Department of Government ( email )

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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

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Pierre Yared

Columbia University - Columbia Business School, Finance ( email )

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