Publications
Publications
- 2023
- HBS Working Paper Series
Economic Integration and the Transmission of Democracy
By: Marco Tabellini and Giacomo Magistretti
Abstract
In this paper, we study the effects of economic integration with democracies on individuals’
democratic values and on countries’ institutions. We combine survey data with
country level measures of democracy from 1960 to 2015, and exploit improvements in air,
relative to sea, transportation to derive a time-varying instrument for economic integration.
We find that economic integration with democracies increases both citizens’ support
for democracy and countries’ democracy scores, whereas economic integration with nondemocracies
has no impact on either attitudes or institutions. The effects are stronger
when democratic partners have a longer history of democracy, grow faster, spend more
on public goods, are culturally closer, and export higher quality goods. They are also
driven by imports, rather than exports, and by integration with democratic partners that
account for a larger share of a country’s trade in institutionally intensive, cultural, and
consumer goods as well as in goods that involve more face-to-face interactions and entail
higher levels of bilateral trust. These patterns are consistent with economic integration
favoring the transmission of democracy by signaling the (actual or perceived) desirability
of the latter.
Keywords
Democratization; Institutional Development; Economic Integration; International Trade; Democracy; Political Preferences; Institutions; Trade; Global Range; Economics; Government and Politics
Citation
Tabellini, Marco, and Giacomo Magistretti. "Economic Integration and the Transmission of Democracy." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 19-003, July 2018. (Revised July 2023. Available also from VOX, VOXEU, Atlantico, The Economist, Domani, and Ideas for India.)