TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rodrik,Dani
TI  - Where Did All The Growth Go? External Shocks, Social Conflict, and Growth Collapses
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 6350
PY  - 1998
Y2  - January 1998
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6350
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w6350.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
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  - This paper argues that domestic social conflicts are a key to understanding why growth rates lack persistence and why so many countries have experienced a growth collapse after the mid-1970s.  It emphasizes conflicts interact with external shocks on the one hand, and the domestic institutions of conflict-management on the other. Econometric evidence provides support for this hypothesis. Countries that experienced the sharpest drops in growth after 1975 were those with divided societies (as measured by indicators of inequality, ethnic fragmentation, and the like) and with weak institutions of conflict management (proxied by indicators of the quality of governmental institutions, rule of law, democratic rights, and social safety nets).
ER  -