Publications
Publications
- 2022
- HBS Working Paper Series
Economic Integration and the Transmission of Democracy
By: Giacomo Magistretti and Marco Tabellini
Abstract
In this paper, we study if exposure to the institutions of trade partners changes individuals' attitudes towards democracy and favors the process of democratization. We combine survey data with country-level measures of democracy from 1960 to 2015, and exploit the improvement in air, relative to sea, transportation to derive a time-varying instrument for trade. Relying on within-country variation across cohorts, we find that individuals who grew up when their country was more integrated with democracies are, at the time of the survey, more supportive of democracy. In line with the change in citizens' preferences, economic integration with democratic partners has a large, positive effect on a country's democracy score. Instead, economic integration with non-democratic partners has no impact on either individuals' attitudes or countries' institutions. We provide evidence consistent with the transmission of democratic capital from more to less democratic countries.
Keywords
Democratization; Institutional Development; Economic Integration; International Trade; Democracy; Political Preferences; Institutions; Trade; Global Range; Economics; Government and Politics
Citation
Magistretti, Giacomo, and Marco Tabellini. "Economic Integration and the Transmission of Democracy." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-003, July 2018. (Revised May 2022. Available also from VOX, VOXEU, Atlantico, and The Economist.)