Is democracy pro‐poor? An empirical test of the Sen Hypothesis based on global evidence

It has long been hypothesized that democracy benefits the poor, yet solid empirical evidence for this assertion is scarce. This article provides new global evidence regarding the poverty‐reduction effect of democracy, which we refer to as the Sen Hypothesis. A difference‐in‐differences estimation us...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Governance (Oxford) 2022-07, Vol.35 (3), p.847-868
Main Authors: Gao, Yanyan, Zang, Leizhen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Democracy
Democratization
Freedom of speech
Panel data
Poverty
Rights
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:It has long been hypothesized that democracy benefits the poor, yet solid empirical evidence for this assertion is scarce. This article provides new global evidence regarding the poverty‐reduction effect of democracy, which we refer to as the Sen Hypothesis. A difference‐in‐differences estimation using cross‐national panel data of over 100 countries from 1995 to 2015 shows that democracy reduces poverty, although the size of the effect varies by the poverty line chosen. The results also show that the effects are channeled by entitling more political rights, increasing freedom of speech and the size of middle classes, and improving governmental quality, and are heterogeneous over time and democratization types.
ISSN:0952-1895
1468-0491
DOI:10.1111/gove.12627