PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Ang, James B.
AU  - Fredriksson, Per G.
AU  - Gupta, Satyendra Kumar
TI  - Crop Yield and Democracy
AID  - 10.3368/le.96.2.265
DP  - 2020 Mar 01
TA  - Land Economics
PG  - 265--290
VI  - 96
IP  - 2
4099  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/96/2/265.short
4100  - http://le.uwpress.org/content/96/2/265.full
SO  - Land Econ2020 Mar 01; 96
AB  - How does the historical legacy of agriculture affect democratic traditions in contemporary societies? This paper provides empirical evidence that inherent crop yield and democracy exhibit an inverted U-shaped relationship. This finding is supported by cross-country data from up to 147 countries, 186 pre-colonial societies, and the U.S. states. The relationship thus exhibits a highly persistent pattern. Crop yield is measured by kilocalories per hectare per year under rain-fed conditions, which has the advantage of being highly exogenous. The hump-shaped relationship holds up to a battery of robustness tests. (JEL O11, O13)