Publication

The paper considers the transformation of the political system as countries pass through the grand transition from a poor to a wealthy country. It shows that most countries change from an authoritarian to a democratic political system in this process. First, the basic pattern of correlations reveals that a good deal of the short- to medium-run causality appears to be from democracy to income. Then the authors demonstrate that the long-run causality is from income to democracy. They show how the grand transition view resolves the seeming contradiction between the long-run and the short-to medium-run effects.