Political regime change, economic liberalization and growth accelerations

Abstract

We examine whether the type of political regime, regime changes, and economic liberalization are related to economic growth accelerations. Our results show that growth accelerations are preceded by economic liberalizations. We also find that growth accelerations are less likely to happen the longer a political regime—be it a democracy or an autocracy—has been in place, while (a move toward) more democracy according to the Polity IV dataset reduces the likelihood of growth accelerations.