[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/wpaper/4415.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Democracies Breed Rent-Seeking Behavior?

Author

Listed:
  • César Calderón
  • Alberto Chong
Abstract
Using objective institutional historical data we test the link between extent, duration, and transparency in democracies and rent-seeking behavior using time-series and panel data approaches. In this paper we focus on the case of Uruguay, an ethnically homogeneous country. We find three main results. First, democratic regimes are negatively linked with rent-seeking actions. Second, the longer the duration of democracy, the less rent-seeking in a society. Third, legislation enacted more transparently is negatively correlated with rent-seeking behavior. Our results are robust to the use of different econometric methods and basic robustness tests and are consistent with prevailing theory.

Suggested Citation

  • César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2005. "Do Democracies Breed Rent-Seeking Behavior?," Research Department Publications 4415, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:4415
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=WP-534&pub_file_name=pubWP-534.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin C. McGuire & Mancur Olson, 1998. "The Economics of Autocracy and Majority Rule: The Invisible Hand and the Use of Force," International Economic Association Series, in: Silvio Borner & Martin Paldam (ed.), The Political Dimension of Economic Growth, chapter 3, pages 38-73, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    3. repec:bla:kyklos:v:42:y:1989:i:4:p:515-32 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Alberto Chong & Luisa Zanforlin, 2004. "Inward-Looking Policies, Institutions, Autocrats, and Economic Growth in Latin America: An Empirical Exploration," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 335-361, February.
    5. Baldwin, Robert E, 1989. "The Political Economy of Trade Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 119-135, Fall.
    6. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    7. A. Chong & C. Calderón, 2000. "Causality and Feedback Between Institutional Measures and Economic Growth," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 69-81, March.
    8. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    9. World Bank, 2004. "World Development Indicators 2004," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13890.
    10. Wittman, Donald, 1989. "Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1395-1424, December.
    11. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
    12. Keefer, Philip, 2004. "Elections, special interests, and the fiscal costs of financial crisis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3439, The World Bank.
    13. W. J. Henisz, 2000. "The Institutional Environment for Economic Growth," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(1), pages 1-31, March.
    14. Sendhil Mullainathan & Marianne Bertrand, 2001. "Do People Mean What They Say? Implications for Subjective Survey Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 67-72, May.
    15. Paolo Mauro, 1995. "Corruption and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 681-712.
    16. Raymond Fisman, 2001. "Estimating the Value of Political Connections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 1095-1102, September.
    17. Amelung, Torsten, 1989. "The Determinants of Protection in Developing Countries: An Extended Interest-Group Approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 42(4), pages 515-532.
    18. Takacs, Wendy E, 1981. "Pressures for Protectionism: An Empirical Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 19(4), pages 687-693, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2006. "Rent Seeking and Democracy in Latin America: What Drives What?," Research Department Publications 4435, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2005. "¿Fomentan las democracias conductas de procura de rentas?," Research Department Publications 4416, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    2. César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2006. "Rent Seeking and Democracy in Latin America: What Drives What?," Research Department Publications 4435, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    3. César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2007. "Rent Seeking And Democracy: Empirical Evidence For Uruguay," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 45(3), pages 592-601, July.
    4. César Calderón & Alberto Chong, 2006. "Búsqueda de rentas y democracia en América Latina: ¿Qué impulsa a qué?," Research Department Publications 4436, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    5. Cesar Calderon & Alberto Chong, 2006. "Do Democracies Breed Rent-seeking Behavior?," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(4), pages 247-260.
    6. Haggard, Stephan & Tiede, Lydia, 2011. "The Rule of Law and Economic Growth: Where are We?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 673-685, May.
    7. Alberto Chong & Luisa Zanforlin, 2004. "Inward-Looking Policies, Institutions, Autocrats, and Economic Growth in Latin America: An Empirical Exploration," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 121(3), pages 335-361, February.
    8. Konstantinos Angelopoulos & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2005. "The Role of Government in Anti-Social Redistributive Activities," CESifo Working Paper Series 1427, CESifo.
    9. Masuch, Klaus & Anderton, Robert & Setzer, Ralph & Benalal, Nicholai, 2018. "Structural policies in the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 210, European Central Bank.
    10. Dethier, Jean-Jacques, 1999. "Governance and Economic Performance: A Survey," Discussion Papers 279846, University of Bonn, Center for Development Research (ZEF).
    11. Rodolphe Durand & Robert M. Grant & Tammy L. Madsen & Sinziana Dorobantu & Aseem Kaul & Bennet Zelner, 2017. "Nonmarket strategy research through the lens of new institutional economics: An integrative review and future directions," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 114-140, January.
    12. Krisztina Kis-Katos & Günther G. Schulze, 2013. "Corruption in Southeast Asia: a survey of recent research," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 27(1), pages 79-109, May.
    13. Madeeha Gohar Qureshi & Eatzaz Ahmed, 2012. "The Inter-linkages between Democracy and Per Capita GDP Growth: A Cross Country Analysis," PIDE-Working Papers 2012:85, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics.
    14. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    15. Arturo Galindo & Alberto Chong & César Calderón, 2001. "Structure and Development of Financial Institutions and Links with Trust: Cross-Country Evidence," Research Department Publications 4251, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    16. Olken, Benjamin A., 2009. "Corruption perceptions vs. corruption reality," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 950-964, August.
    17. Andrea Asoni, 2008. "Protection Of Property Rights And Growth As Political Equilibria," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 953-987, December.
    18. Marion Payen & Patrick Rondé, 2020. "Culture, Institutions and Economic Growth," Working Papers of BETA 2020-18, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    19. Harouna Sedgo & Luc Désiré Omgba, 2023. "Corruption and distortion of public expenditures: evidence from Africa," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 30(2), pages 419-452, April.
    20. Yan Leung Cheung & P. Raghavendra Rau & Aris Stouraitis, 2012. "How much do firms pay as bribes and what benefits do they get? Evidence from corruption cases worldwide," NBER Working Papers 17981, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:4415. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.