Curse of Democracy: Evidence from the 21st Century

Democracy is widely believed to contribute to economic growth and public health. However, we find that this conventional wisdom is no longer true and even reversed; democracy has persistent negative impacts on GDP growth since the beginning of this century. This finding emerges from five different instrumental variable strategies. Our analysis suggests that democracies cause slower growth through less investment, less trade, and slower value-added growth in manufacturing and services. For 2020, democracy is also found to cause more deaths from Covid-19.