Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy

Debowicz, Dario; Dickson, Alex; MacKenzie, Ian A.; Sekeris, Petros G.

doi:10.1007/s11127-025-01268-3

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Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy

Dario Debowicz

, Alex Dickson, Ian A. MacKenzie, Petros G. Sekeris

Public Choice

Swansea University Author: Dario Debowicz

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DOI (Published version): 10.1007/s11127-025-01268-3

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between income and democracy. A theoretical framework is developed where citizens derive utility from both material goods and political rights. Citizens can devote their time either to creating material benefits or to political activism (that improves political libert...

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Published in:	Public Choice
ISSN:	0048-5829 1573-7101
Published:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2025
Online Access:	Check full text
URI:	https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa69111

first_indexed	2025-03-17T22:02:21Z
last_indexed	2025-04-11T05:22:14Z
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spelling	2025-04-10T13:32:05.7903290 v2 69111 2025-03-17 Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy 18768254a7b135c91af92568d0499ded 0000-0003-0944-3097 Dario Debowicz Dario Debowicz true false 2025-03-17 SOSS We investigate the relationship between income and democracy. A theoretical framework is developed where citizens derive utility from both material goods and political rights. Citizens can devote their time either to creating material benefits or to political activism (that improves political liberties). We demonstrate a non-monotonic relationship between income and democracy. In low income countries—where the elasticity of the marginal rate of substitution between material goods and political rights is low because of small incomes—exogenous increases in income (wages) lead to a reduction in the level of political liberties: as wages increase, citizens are increasingly willing to give up time otherwise devoted to activism to work more. In high income countries, the opposite is true: political liberties increase with income. Our country fixed-effects and GMM estimations on cross-country data over 1960–2010 empirically validate this non-monotonic prediction, thereby corroborating our theory above-and-beyond the effect of institutions and culture. The predictions are equally validated for data spanning back to 1800. Journal Article Public Choice 0 Springer Science and Business Media LLC 0048-5829 1573-7101 income; Democratic values; preferences 7 3 2025 2025-03-07 10.1007/s11127-025-01268-3 COLLEGE NANME Social Sciences School COLLEGE CODE SOSS Swansea University 2025-04-10T13:32:05.7903290 2025-03-17T13:17:10.9849280 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Social Sciences - Economics Dario Debowicz 0000-0003-0944-3097 1 Alex Dickson 2 Ian A. MacKenzie 3 Petros G. Sekeris 0000-0003-0402-2744 4 69111__33887__482ac25edcd24e6e87ca97f5f520f710.pdf Income_and_the__Eventual__Rise_of_Democracy (before PUCH edition).pdf 2025-03-26T12:59:26.7377326 Output 359155 application/pdf Accepted Manuscript true Author accepted manuscript document released under the terms of a Creative Commons CC-BY licence using the Swansea University Research Publications Policy (rights retention). true eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en
title	Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy
spellingShingle	Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy Dario Debowicz
title_short	Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy
title_full	Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy
title_fullStr	Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy
title_full_unstemmed	Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy
title_sort	Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy
author_id_str_mv	18768254a7b135c91af92568d0499ded
author_id_fullname_str_mv	18768254a7b135c91af92568d0499ded_***_Dario Debowicz
author	Dario Debowicz
author2	Dario Debowicz Alex Dickson Ian A. MacKenzie Petros G. Sekeris
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publishDate	2025
institution	Swansea University
issn	0048-5829 1573-7101
doi_str_mv	10.1007/s11127-025-01268-3
publisher	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
college_str	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_title	Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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department_str	School of Social Sciences - Economics{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Social Sciences - Economics
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description	We investigate the relationship between income and democracy. A theoretical framework is developed where citizens derive utility from both material goods and political rights. Citizens can devote their time either to creating material benefits or to political activism (that improves political liberties). We demonstrate a non-monotonic relationship between income and democracy. In low income countries—where the elasticity of the marginal rate of substitution between material goods and political rights is low because of small incomes—exogenous increases in income (wages) lead to a reduction in the level of political liberties: as wages increase, citizens are increasingly willing to give up time otherwise devoted to activism to work more. In high income countries, the opposite is true: political liberties increase with income. Our country fixed-effects and GMM estimations on cross-country data over 1960–2010 empirically validate this non-monotonic prediction, thereby corroborating our theory above-and-beyond the effect of institutions and culture. The predictions are equally validated for data spanning back to 1800.
published_date	2025-03-07T09:40:24Z
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Income and the (eventual) rise of democracy

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