I havenāt read any of the papers cited here, nor am I especially well-versed in relevant areas of economics. But my initial reaction to āMost of the biggest growth accelerations have occurred in autocraciesā is that that sounds like a correlation thatās relatively unlikely to be explained by autocracy causing more growth, and relatively unlikely to conflict with the idea that democracy causes better growth (with all other factors held constant).
In particular, Iāve heard it argued that ācatch-upā growth is substantially easier than ācutting-edgeā growth. If thatās true, then that might suggest autocracies might have experienced growth accelerations more often than democracies not because being an autocracy causes a higher chance of having a growth acceleration, but rather because:
it happens to be that autocracies have less often been on the ācutting edgeā than democracies, so theyāve more often been able to engage in ācatch-upā growth
on top of that, being an autocracy makes it more likely that a country will have deceleration episodes, which then creates additional opportunities for ācatch-upā growth
A related or perhaps identical possibility is that autocracies may sometimes implement policies that actively harm their economies in major ways, such that merely removing those policies could cause rapid growth. (I have in mind the transition from Maoās policies to Deng Xiaopingās policies, though I donāt know much about that transition, really.)
This is all rather speculative. Iād be interested to hear thoughts on this from someone with more knowledge of the area.
I havenāt read any of the papers cited here, nor am I especially well-versed in relevant areas of economics. But my initial reaction to āMost of the biggest growth accelerations have occurred in autocraciesā is that that sounds like a correlation thatās relatively unlikely to be explained by autocracy causing more growth, and relatively unlikely to conflict with the idea that democracy causes better growth (with all other factors held constant).
In particular, Iāve heard it argued that ācatch-upā growth is substantially easier than ācutting-edgeā growth. If thatās true, then that might suggest autocracies might have experienced growth accelerations more often than democracies not because being an autocracy causes a higher chance of having a growth acceleration, but rather because:
it happens to be that autocracies have less often been on the ācutting edgeā than democracies, so theyāve more often been able to engage in ācatch-upā growth
on top of that, being an autocracy makes it more likely that a country will have deceleration episodes, which then creates additional opportunities for ācatch-upā growth
A related or perhaps identical possibility is that autocracies may sometimes implement policies that actively harm their economies in major ways, such that merely removing those policies could cause rapid growth. (I have in mind the transition from Maoās policies to Deng Xiaopingās policies, though I donāt know much about that transition, really.)
This is all rather speculative. Iād be interested to hear thoughts on this from someone with more knowledge of the area.