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Political instability and economic growth

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Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between political instability and per capita GDP growth in a sample of 113 countries for the period 1950 through 1982. We define political instability as the propensity of a government collapse, and we estimate a model in which such a measure of political instability and economic growth are jointly determined. The main result of this paper is that in countries and time periods with a high propensity of government collapse, growth is significantly lower than otherwise. We also discuss the effects of different types of government changes on growth.

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Alesina, A., Özler, S., Roubini, N. et al. Political instability and economic growth. J Econ Growth 1, 189–211 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00138862

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