RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Crop Yield and Democracy
JF Land Economics
JO Land Econ
FD University of Wisconsin Press
SP 265
OP 290
DO 10.3368/le.96.2.265
VO 96
IS 2
A1 Ang, James B.
A1 Fredriksson, Per G.
A1 Gupta, Satyendra Kumar
YR 2020
UL http://le.uwpress.org/content/96/2/265.abstract
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)