Although it's not a new paper, I thought it would be good right about now to dig up a little bit of wisdom from Dani Rodrik and Romain Wacziarg called Do Democratic Transitions Produce Bad Economic Outcomes? The short answer is no. But I'll let them speak for themselves:
We show in this paper that the data do not support the view that democratization is bad for economic performance. Our analysis reveals that major democratic transitions have, if anything, a positive effect on economic growth in the short run...this is especially true for the poorest countries of the world and those that are marked by sharp ethnic divisions.
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