Democracy, Dictatorship and Protection of Property Rights

This article investigates how political regimes influence property rights. The article reviews arguments for and against the hypothesis that democracy enhances property rights protection, and then conducts empirical tests. Democracy is likely endogenous to property rights protection. The analysis takes this into account by utilising an innovative instrument for democracy. The results, based on data from 1984 to 2004 for over 120 countries, show that democracy enhances property rights protection, even when controlling for endogeneity and country-specific characteristics.