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This paper examines democracy's impact on the labor share of income: the share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dedicated to wages, salaries, and benefits. I hypothesize democratic regimes afford labor the opportunity to increase its share of national income. While previous empirical work finds cross-sectional evidence for the hypothesis, this paper employs a time-series cross-sectional analysis using data for 119 countries between 1950 and 2017, indicating the labor share of income is higher in democratic countries. The estimates are robust to different specifications of the statistical model. This paper also examines a potential causal mechanism that links democracy to a higher labor share through the supply of labor (the average number of hours worked in the economy). The relationship between democracy and the supply of labor lends additional evidence to my hypothesis. In a world characterized by diverging democracy, the results imply the path countries choose between democracy and dictatorship matters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As democracy advances in many regions throughout the world, it is often accompanied by increasing violence. Most cross-national analyses find that an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between homicide and democracy: homicide rates are highest in hybrid regimes and lowest in authoritarian and democratic regimes. While a fairly robust empirical result, little is known about why it exists. We identify a specific institution—due process—that cuts across regime types and effectively explains homicide. Due process generates a legitimacy that encourages individuals to use the justice system to settle disputes. A more effective criminal justice system also deters crime in the first place. Using a cross-national sample of eighty-nine countries between 2009 and 2014, we find a strong negative relationship between due process and homicide. Put simply, how states fight crime explains their success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does international support for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) lead to political change in the developing world? Massive amounts of domestic government spending and international aid are now distributed through NGOs instead of state bureaucracies. Recent scholarship suggests that this decentralization of developmental aid to NGOs has unintended political effects on recipient communities, but the mechanisms driving political effects are unclear. In this article, the authors test whether NGO type affects the results of NGO aid, comparing the political impact of politicized and nonpoliticized NGOs. They do not find any difference between politicized and nonpoliticized NGOs. The results imply that to create political change, ideological predispositions held by individual NGOs are less important than is their ability to raise the level of social capital and civil society. Simply providing the infrastructure necessary to develop social capital and civil society can have a measurable political impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous work on political institutions and economic reform provides a number of testable hypotheses that are rarely examined in a multivariate framework. Divided government, political polarization, fragmented legislatures, ideology, external factors, the strength of the presidency, and democracy itself have all been forwarded as possible constraints that influence the depth and speed of economic reform. Using time-series cross-sectional data, this research note provides a multivariate test of the impact these institutions have on different components of structural reform. Our findings suggest that specific institutional arrangements are important for achieving some specific kinds of economic reform. However, our main finding implies the kind of institutional and ideological constraints prominent in the literature do not constrain politicians from enacting reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between democratic representation and spending on education in Latin America. The authors assess the impact that democracy has on the distribution of resources between different levels of schooling and on total spending on education. Specifically, they test whether democratic governments allocate a greater share of resources to primary education, the level that benefits the largest segment of the electorate and that is most critical for human capital formation in developing countries. Using time-series cross-sectional analysis, the authors find that democracies devote a higher percentage of their educational resources to primary education and that they maintain higher absolute spending levels on education in the aggregate, thereby enhancing the prospects of human capital formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous work on political institutions and economic reform provide a number of testable hypotheses that have yet to be fully examined in a multivariate framework. The strength of the presidency, divided government, political polarization, fragmented legislatures, ideology, and democracy itself have all been forwarded as possible constraints that influence the depth and speed of economic reform. Using time-series cross-sectional data, we provide a multivariate test of the impact these institutions have on privatization. Our findings suggest privatization is a unique process that should be analyzed separately from other economic reforms. More importantly, the results provide reasons to be optimistic: privatization can occur under a variety of different political institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the first attempt to examine the political consequences of internationally funded programs that target local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Although the purported mission of NGOs is often economic, humanitarian, or environmental, the authors suggest that their impact is also profoundly political. Injections of international resources into underdeveloped, often clientelistic societies can fundamentally change the nature of the local political arena, affecting access to economic resources, social benefits, and ultimately the quality of democratic representation. The authors analyze the impact external resources have on politics by examining a series of World Bank-funded projects based in the Brazilian Amazon from 1995 to 1997. They show that World Bank funding designed to channel resources to local groups had powerful effects in the political arena, increasing electoral support for the Left in the 1998 presidential race. This article has important implications for the growing role of NGOs and their influence on politics in the developing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies underscore the importance of international organizations in transmitting norms, ideas, and values to developing countries. But has this diffusion influenced government policy in less developed countries? During the past two decades, the World Bank has emphasized the need for Third World governments to increase the stock of human capital by investing in education and health. Specifically, it has encouraged developing countries to shift an increasing share of their resources toward primary education. The authors examine 13 Latin American countries between 1980 and 1992 to establish the relationship between World Bank project lending and government investment in human capital. They combine time-series cross-sectional analysis with field research to evaluate the World Bank's influence on government spending on education and health. Although the World Bank may be successful in convincing developing country technocrats to "invest in people;' this research suggests that it is less successful in convincing the politicians who control the purse strings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the relationship between democracy and the accumulation of human capital in developing countries of the Middle East, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and South America. Impact of regime's type on primary school enrollment; Models using dichotomous and continuous measures of democracy; Effect of individual rights and electoral competition on primary school enrollment.

Regional integration over the past decade has facilitated a huge flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Latin America. Less is known, however, about why these new foreign enterprises decided to enter specific markets. This study investigates three recent investments in Costa Rica: two by U.S.-based multinational corporations (MNCs) and another by an MNC based in Spain. The behavior of these MNCs is examined in their initial bargaining and subsequent operations. Through the lens of political economy, this study concludes that Costa Rica's stable democratic institutions and formalized economic links through multilateral and regional trade and investment accords constitute an advanced factor of comparative advantage that attracted foreign investment to Costa Rica and induced the MNCs to become responsive to host country interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]