Irrigation and Autocracy

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Abstract

We show that societies with a history of irrigation-based agriculture have been less likely to adopt democracy than societies with a history of rainfed agriculture. Rather than actual irrigation, the empirical analysis is based on how much irrigation potentially can increase yields.Irrigation potential is derived from a range of exogenous geographic factors, and reverse causality is therefore ruled out. Our results hold both at the cross-country level, and at the subnational
level in premodern societies surveyed by ethnographers.
Original languageEnglish
PublisherDepartment of Economics, University of Copenhagen
Number of pages32
Publication statusPublished - 2012
SeriesUniversity of Copenhagen. Institute of Economics. Discussion Papers (Online)
Number06
Volume2012
ISSN1601-2461

Keywords

  • Faculty of Social Sciences

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