Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: May, 2011, Volume 79, Issue 3

Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA8183
p. 923-947

Markus Brückner, Antonio Ciccone

We show that democratic change may be triggered by transitory economic shocks. Our approach uses within‐country variation in rainfall as a source of transitory shocks to sub‐Saharan African economies. We find that negative rainfall shocks are followed by significant improvement in democratic institutions. This result is consistent with the economic approach to political transitions, where transitory negative shocks can open a window of opportunity for democratic improvement. Instrumental variables estimates indicate that following a transitory negative income shock of 1 percent, democracy scores improve by 0.9 percentage points and the probability of a democratic transition increases by 1.3 percentage points.


Log In To View Full Content

Supplemental Material

Supplement to "Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity"

This PDF file contains tables and figures for the paper.

Supplement to "Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity"

A zip file containing replication files for the manuscript.