TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rigobon,Roberto
AU  - Rodrik,Dani
TI  - Rule of Law, Democracy, Openness, and Income: Estimating the Interrelationships
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10750
PY  - 2004
Y2  - September 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10750
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10750.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Roberto Rigobon
MIT Sloan School of Management
100 Main Street, E62-516
Cambridge, MA 02142
Tel: 617/258-8374
Fax: 617/258-6855
E-Mail: rigobon@mit.edu

Dani Rodrik
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
79 JFK Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-9454
Fax: 617/496-5747
E-Mail: dani_rodrik@harvard.edu
AB  - We estimate the interrelationships among economic institutions, political institutions, openness, and income levels, using identification through heteroskedasticity (IH). We split our cross-national dataset into two sub-samples: (i) colonies versus non-colonies; and (ii) continents aligned on an East-West versus those aligned on a North-South axis. We exploit the difference in the structural variances in these two sub-samples to gain identification. We find that democracy and the rule of law are both good for economic performance, but the latter has a much stronger impact on incomes. Openness (trade/GDP) has a negative impact on income levels and democracy, but a positive effect on rule of law. Higher income produces greater openness and better institutions, but these effects are not very strong. Rule of law and democracy tend to be mutually reinforcing.
ER  -