Is Democracy Good for the Environment? Quasi-Experimental Evidence from Regime Transitions

This paper tests the hypothesis that democratisation is conducive to less environmental depletion due to human activity. Using interrupted time series design for a panel of 47 transition countries and two indexes of pollution, CO 2 emissions and PM10 concentrations, I find that democracies and dicta...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Environmental & resource economics 2016-06, Vol.64 (2), p.275-300
Main Author: Policardo, Laura
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Autocracy
Bias
Carbon dioxide emissions
Civil liberties
Cointegration analysis
Critical care
Democracy
Democratization
Dictators
Economic models
Economic Policy
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Economics
Economics and Finance
Emissions
Environmental Economics
Environmental impact
Environmental Law/Policy/Ecojustice
Environmental Management
Environmental quality
Particulate matter
Pollution
Pollution index
Socioeconomics
Studies
Time series
Variables
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Summary:This paper tests the hypothesis that democratisation is conducive to less environmental depletion due to human activity. Using interrupted time series design for a panel of 47 transition countries and two indexes of pollution, CO 2 emissions and PM10 concentrations, I find that democracies and dictatorships have two different targets of environmental quality, with those of democracies higher than those of dictatorships. Income inequality may as well alter this targets, but with opposite effects in the two different regimes.
ISSN:0924-6460
1573-1502
DOI:10.1007/s10640-014-9870-0