A meta-analysis of income and democracy

Bibliographic Data

ID6253263
AuthorsTroy Saghaug Broderstad (0000-0001-7058-5348, University of Bergen, corresponding author)
Year2018
Volume25
Issue2
Pages293-311
Publication date2018-02-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDemocratization (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1351-0347 • E-ISSN: 1743-890X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13510347.2017.1362556
OpenAlexW2746649483
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited61

The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between per capita income and democracy. Namely, do increases in income per capita affect a regime's level of democracy? The scholarly tradition has investigated this question over many years, and what we have learned about the actual association between these variables remains inconclusive. As opposed to producing yet another empirical analysis of this hypothesized relationship, this article sets forth to examine it via a new methodological approach. Applying the tools of meta-regression analysis to 33 individual empirical studies that investigate the relationship between income and democracy, this article finds that income has no statistically significant, quantitatively meaningful effect on democracy (understanding the latter as a graded concept). I also show that there is no theoretical or empirical reason to believe that this field of research is "haunted" by publication selection bias. Moreover, I identify a variety of systematic differences between these studies, that is, study heterogeneity, which explain why it is the case that after 60 years of research we still have not reached a consensus

Affect (linguistics · Democracy · Demographic economics · Econometrics · Economics · Empirical research · MEDLINE · Meta-analysis · Meta-regression · Per capita · Per capita income · Political science · Politics · Population · Positive economics · Publication bias · Sociology · Statistics · Variety (cybernetics · Corruption and Economic Development · Demography · Fiscal Policies and Political Economy · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Law · Mathematics