Reforms and their components. Does democracy really matter?

Abstract

[eng] Governments undertake economic policy decisions with important consequences for growth and welfare. In this paper the author studies the role of democracies, and other indicators to explain economic reforms. Using a cross-section of 129 countries, the author investigates which could be the variables that correlate with reformism of different governments. The results indicate that democracies do actually have a positive impact on reformism, while other components, such as GDP per capita, rule of law and human capital, indicate that more advanced countries undertake fewer reforms than developing countries.