Political competition and growth in global perspective: evidence from panel data

The present paper investigates the relationship between political competition, its components (executive versus legislature), and economic growth in international panel data. The results suggest the presence of a statistically significant nonlinearity between political competition (overall and in the executive) and growth in the form of a U-shape. In contrast, political competition variables do not exert statistically significant effects on growth in linear specifications. These results withstand an array of extensions and robustness checks, and provide international panel data evidence complementing work conducted for national and cross-sectional contexts.