Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role of Population

In order to explain the apparently paradoxical presence of acceptable governance in many non-democratic regimes, economists and political scientists have focused mostly on institutions acting as de facto checks and balances. In this paper, we propose that population plays a similar role in guarantee...

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Main Authors: DO, Quoc-Anh, CAMPANTE, Filipe R.
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Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2009
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Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1135
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/2134/viewcontent/DoCampante2008NonDemoc_PopCon.pdf
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spelling sg-smu-ink.soe_research-21342019-04-21T15:11:39Z Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role of Population DO, Quoc-Anh CAMPANTE, Filipe R. In order to explain the apparently paradoxical presence of acceptable governance in many non-democratic regimes, economists and political scientists have focused mostly on institutions acting as de facto checks and balances. In this paper, we propose that population plays a similar role in guaranteeing the quality of governance and redistribution. We argue and demonstrate with historical evidence that the concentration of population around the policy making center serves as an insurgency threat to a dictatorship, inducing it to yield to more redistribution and better governance. We bring this centered concept of population concentration to the data through the Centered Index of Spatial Concentration developed by Do & Campante (2008). The evidence supports our predictions: only in the sample of autocracies, population concentration around the capital city is positively associated with better governance and more redistribution (proxied by post-tax inequality), in OLS and IV regressions. Finally, we provide arguments to dismiss possible reverse causation as well as alternative, non-political economy explanations of such regularity, discuss the general applicability of our index and conclude with policy implications 2009-01-01T08:00:00Z text application/pdf https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1135 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/2134/viewcontent/DoCampante2008NonDemoc_PopCon.pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Research Collection School Of Economics eng Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Capital Cities Gravity Governance Inequality Redistribution Population Concentration Revolutions Harmonic Functions Axiomatics Political Economy Public Economics
institution Singapore Management University
building SMU Libraries
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider SMU Libraries
collection InK@SMU
language English
topic Capital Cities
Gravity
Governance
Inequality
Redistribution
Population Concentration
Revolutions
Harmonic Functions
Axiomatics
Political Economy
Public Economics
spellingShingle Capital Cities
Gravity
Governance
Inequality
Redistribution
Population Concentration
Revolutions
Harmonic Functions
Axiomatics
Political Economy
Public Economics
DO, Quoc-Anh
CAMPANTE, Filipe R.
Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role of Population
description In order to explain the apparently paradoxical presence of acceptable governance in many non-democratic regimes, economists and political scientists have focused mostly on institutions acting as de facto checks and balances. In this paper, we propose that population plays a similar role in guaranteeing the quality of governance and redistribution. We argue and demonstrate with historical evidence that the concentration of population around the policy making center serves as an insurgency threat to a dictatorship, inducing it to yield to more redistribution and better governance. We bring this centered concept of population concentration to the data through the Centered Index of Spatial Concentration developed by Do & Campante (2008). The evidence supports our predictions: only in the sample of autocracies, population concentration around the capital city is positively associated with better governance and more redistribution (proxied by post-tax inequality), in OLS and IV regressions. Finally, we provide arguments to dismiss possible reverse causation as well as alternative, non-political economy explanations of such regularity, discuss the general applicability of our index and conclude with policy implications
format text
author DO, Quoc-Anh
CAMPANTE, Filipe R.
author_facet DO, Quoc-Anh
CAMPANTE, Filipe R.
author_sort DO, Quoc-Anh
title Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role of Population
title_short Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role of Population
title_full Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role of Population
title_fullStr Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role of Population
title_full_unstemmed Keeping Dictators Honest: The Role of Population
title_sort keeping dictators honest: the role of population
publisher Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University
publishDate 2009
url https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soe_research/1135
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soe_research/article/2134/viewcontent/DoCampante2008NonDemoc_PopCon.pdf
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