Democracy and Development

民主和经济增长之间的关系是政治经济学领域中最重要但知之甚少的问题之一。民主与经济增长兼容吗？或者，牺牲个人自由是人们摆脱贫困必须付出的代价吗？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，这项研究也考虑了增长对民主的影响。该项目使用先进的统计方法和1945年以来世界民族国家横截面的汇总数据，考察了民主和发展之间的相互影响。这项研究完成后，应该有助于我们理解，在为公民创造财富方面，威权政府是否在任何条件下优于民主政府，以及是否存在建立稳定的民主统治所必需的最低经济发展水平。今天，这些问题尤其紧迫，因为世界上许多国家都在试图建立或重建民主，尤其是在东欧。

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.