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Comments on: Democracy and growth http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/ The Visible Hand in Economics Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:48:22 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: The new SAP in Iraq « The visible hand in economics http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-162 Sun, 26 Aug 2007 21:48:22 +0000 http://tvhe.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-162 […] new SAP in Iraq A commenter on the ‘Democracy and Growth’ post below said that he didn’t think “…growth was ever a putative justification […]

]]> By: rauparaha http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-161 Sun, 26 Aug 2007 20:30:36 +0000 http://tvhe.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-161 Thanks for the interesting comment: I haven’t seen that paper so I’ll go and have a look around for it.

In my defence, I wasn’t trying to promote non-democratic government with this post. I do think that a lot of Western governments promote democracy as the way forward for developing countries. They either point to their own economic wealth as a justification, or they offer vague rhetoric about freedom and liberty. I don’t think that’s enough of a reason to pursue a policy of pushing countries to switch political systems. I do believe that democracy is the best functioning political system that we have at the moment, I’d just like to see its leaders be a bit more honest about justifying their overseas interventions. We can all dream, can’t we???

]]> By: terence http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-160 Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:04:47 +0000 http://tvhe.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-160 oh – and another thing – I don’t think growth was ever a putative justification for the invasion of Iraq; rather democracy was seen as a counter to the rise of Islamism.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that that claim has been fairly disproven by subsequent events .

]]> By: terence http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-159 Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:01:51 +0000 http://tvhe.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-159 I’m an Acemoglu fan also (talk about a chap with an eye for finding good instruments), but it’s worth noting (and I’m in a hurry now so don’t have time to find the link) that somewhere on Dani Rodrik’s KSG site (Rodrik, of course, was one of Acemoglu’s allies in the great Instns v Geography duel) is a paper which shows (as much as these things can show anything) that, while not experiencing higher growth, on average, democracies have:

1. Better distributional outcomes
and
2. Fewer big negative economic shocks.

Add to that, Amartya Sen’s stuff on famines not occurring in democratic nations with a free press and Matt’s comment above and I know what sort of political system I’d sooner live in.

I just wouldn’t want people as inept and evil as the Bushies to bomb me there.

]]> By: Matt Nolan http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-158 Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:17:23 +0000 http://tvhe.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/democracy-and-growth/#comment-158 Of course, even if democracy does not offer economic benefits, the social benefits of free speech and liberty cannot be under-valued.

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