Department
Economics, Finance and Quantitative Analysis
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-2-2014
Abstract
We study the relationship between participation in free trade agreements (FTAs) and the sustainability of democracy. Our model shows that FTAs can critically reduce the incentive of authoritarian groups to seek power by destroying protectionist rents, thus making democracies last longer. This gives governments in unstable democracies an extra motive to form FTAs. Hence, greater democratic instability induces governments to boost their FTA commitments. In a dataset with 116 countries over 1960-2007, we find robust support for these predictions. They help to rationalize the rapid simultaneous growth of regionalism and of worldwide democratization since the late 1980s.
Journal Title
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
Journal ISSN
1945-7715
Volume
6
Issue
2
First Page
29
Last Page
70
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1257/mac.6.2.29