The champions of capitalism? National leaders and the institutional channel. Issue 8 (3rd May 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Murphy, Ryan H.; O'Reilly, Colin W.
• Is Part Of: Applied economics letters. Volume 27:Issue 8(2020)
• Page Start: 647
• Page End: 650
• Publication Date: 2020-05-03
• Subjects: Autocracy -- economic freedom -- leaders -- ideology -- institutions; O43 -- N40; Economics -- Periodicals; Economics, Mathematical -- Periodicals; 330
• DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2020.1730745
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1350-4851

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Economic growth can be attributed to national leaders in only a limited set of cases. We compare two sets of leaders identified in the literature – those whose growth rates are statistically greater than zero and those whose growth rates are found to be statistically less than zero. We find that leaders who performed better in terms of economic growth presided over a change in economic freedom of roughly a half of a point more than those who performed poorly, suggesting the difference in economic performance may in part have been through the institutional channel. The effect is large, with many specifications corresponding to more than a half of a standard deviation across countries today.