Political competition and economic growth: A nonlinear relationship?

- Is the relationship between political competition and growth nonlinear?
- I employ kernel regression as the primary econometric approach.
- Several political competition variables are tested, differential impact on growth.
- Evidence suggests presence of nonlinearities; support from robustness checks.

This paper asks empirically the question about potential nonlinearities in the relationship between political competition and economic growth in global perspective. Kernel estimation is employed to analyze this link using cross-sectional data for the time span 1988-2007. To take into account the mix of categorical and continuous data types encountered here, I apply the generalized product kernel approach. Across various measures of political competition, the findings do suggest the presence of nonlinearities, and indicate a differential impact on growth for the various components of political competition.