Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/259971 
Year of Publication: 
2009
Series/Report no.: 
Working Paper No. 2009:8
Publisher: 
Lund University, School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Lund
Abstract: 
Both institutional quality and institutional stability have been argued to stimulate economic growth. But to improve institutional quality, a country must endure a period of institutional change, which implies at least a little and possibly a lot of institutional instability. We investigate the growth effects of institutional quality and instability, using the political risk index from the ICRG in a cross-country study of 132 countries, measuring instability as the coefficient of variation. Using the aggregate index, we find evidence that institutional quality is positively linked to growth. While institutional instability is negatively related to growth in the baseline case, there are indications that the effect can be positive in rich countries, suggesting that institutional reform is not necessarily costly even during a transition period. Sensitivity analysis, e.g., decomposing the political risk index by using both its constituting components and the results of a principal components analysis, using other measures of institutional quality and excluding outliers, confirm the general results, with qualifications.
Subjects: 
Institutions
Instability
Growth
Transaction costs
Uncertainty
JEL: 
B52
D80
O11
O17
O43
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
306.34 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.