Does rapid economic growth enhance democratization? Time-series evidence from high performing Asian economies

Abstract

We examine the long-run relationship between economic growth and democratization for the high performing Asian economies using a time-series technique called the autoregressive distributive lag bounds test. For all eight of such economies, we do not find a statistically significant long-run relationship running from growth to democratization. Instead, we find a statistically significant long-run relationship running from democratization to growth, which can be either positive or negative. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, our results suggest that rapid economic growth in the high performing Asian economies appears to have little effect on democratization in the long run.