New Tools and New Tests in Comparative Political Economy : The Database of Political Institutions

Beck, Thorsten ; Clarke, George ; Groff, Alberto ; Keefer, Philip ; Walsh, Patrick

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: BUDGET DEFICITS;    CABINET;    CABINETS;    CITIZENS;    CIVIL WAR;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-2283
RP-ID  :  WPS2283

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper introduces a large newcross-country database on political institutions: theDatabase on Political Institutions (DPI). The authorssummarize key variables (many of them new), compare thisdata set with others, and explore the range of issues forwhich the data should prove invaluable. Among the novelvariables they introduce: 1) Several measures of tenure,stability, and checks and balances. 2) Identification ofparties with the government coalition or the opposition. 3)Fragmentation of opposition and government parties inlegislatures. The authors illustrate the application of DPIvariables to several problems in political economy. Stepanand Skach, for example, find that democracy is more likelyto survive under parliamentary governments than presidentialsystems. But this result is not robust to the use ofdifferent variables from the DPI, which raises puzzles forfuture research. Similarly, Roubini and Sachs, find thatdivided governments in the OECD run higher budget deficitsafter fiscal shocks. Replication of their work using DPIindicators of divided government indicates otherwise, againsuggesting issues for future research. Among questions inpolitical science and economics, that this database mayilluminate: the determinants of democratic consolidation,the political conditions for economic reform, the politicaland institutional roots of corruption, and the elements ofappropriate and institutionally sensitive design of economic policy.