Investing in Institutions

Robust institutional change is difficult to achieve.  However, the growth paths of some countries are more likely to be affected by contemporaneous political turmoil than others.  This paper supports this claim using data on GDP growth during periods of extreme political turmoil for 69 countries between 1870 and 2000.  The authors argue that the robustness of a country's growth path to political uncertainty depends on the degree to which individuals are invested in its current institutions.  A simple model is developed to illustrate the factors which govern an agent's decision of how much to invest in a country's institutions governing property rights and impersonal exchange.  The model predicts a nonlinear relationship between investment in institutions and the effect of political uncertainty on the stability of growth.  Empirical tests in which Contract Intensive Money is used to proxy for the amount of investment in the contract intensive sector in a cross-sectional and panel framework between 1960 and 2000 support the predictions of the model.  Results are also robust to controlling for the endogeneity of political change and economic growth using instrumental variables approaches.

This working paper is now published. View the article here.

Citation (Chicago-Style)

Ryan A. Compton, Daniel C. Giedeman, and Noel D. Johnson. "Investing in Institutions." Working Paper, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, 2009.