Democracy and Development

民主与经济增长之间的关系是政治经济学领域中最重要但却鲜为人知的问题之一。民主和经济增长能兼容吗？或者牺牲个人自由是人们摆脱贫困必须付出的必要代价？这个项目的核心问题是民主是促进、阻碍还是与经济发展无关。然而，由于经济发展可能也会影响民主的发展，因此本研究也考虑了经济增长对民主的影响。本项目采用先进的统计方法和1945年以来世界各民族国家的横截面汇总数据，考察民主与发展之间的相互影响。这项研究完成后，将有助于我们了解威权政府在为其公民创造财富方面是否存在优于民主政府的条件，以及是否存在建立稳定民主统治所必需的最低经济发展水平。这些问题在今天尤其紧迫，因为世界上许多国家，特别是东欧国家都在试图建立或重建民主。

The relationship between democracy and economic growth is among the most important but poorly understood in the field of political economy. Are democracy and economic growth compatible? Or is the sacrifice of personal freedom a necessary price people must pay to escape poverty? The central question of this project is whether democracy promotes, impedes, or is irrelevant to economic development. However, because economic development probably also influences the development of democracy, the study also considers the effects of growth on democracy. This project examines the reciprocal influences between democracy and development using advanced statistical methods and aggregate data on a cross section of the world's nation states since 1945. When completed, the study should help us understand whether there are any conditions under which authoritarian governments are superior to democracies in producing wealth for their citizens and whether there is some minimum level of economic development that is necessary for the establishment of stable democratic rule. These questions are particularly urgent today as attempts to establish or re-establish democracy are occurring in numerous countries around the world, including especially in eastern Europe.