Free Trade Agreements and the Consolidation of Democracy

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Liu, Xuepeng; Ornelas, Emanuel
• 署名单位: University System of Georgia; Kennesaw State University; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.6.2.29
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 29-70
• 关键词: INTERNATIONAL-TRADE; political-economy; LIBERALIZATION; determinants; models; run

摘要

We study the relationship between participation in free trade agreements (FTAs) and the sustainability of democracy. Our model shows that FTAs can critically reduce the incentive of authoritarian groups to seek power by destroying protectionist rents, thus making democracies last longer. This gives governments in unstable democracies an extra motive to form FTAs. Hence, greater democratic instability induces governments to boost their FTA commitments. In a data-set with 116 countries over 1960-2007, we find robust support for these predictions. They help to rationalize the rapid simultaneous growth of regionalism and of worldwide democratization since the late 1980s.