Rain and the Democratic Window of Opportunity
研究发现，撒哈拉以南非洲的临时性负面降雨冲击会显著改善民主制度，支持了经济冲击打开民主机会窗口的理论。
We show that democratic change may be triggered by transitory economic shocks. Our approach uses within-country variation in rainfall as a source of transitory shocks to sub-Saharan African economies. We find that negative rainfall shocks are followed by significant improvement in democratic institutions. This result is consistent with the economic approach to political transitions, where transitory negative shocks can open a window of opportunity for democratic improvement. Instrumental variables estimates indicate that following a transitory negative income shock of 1 percent, democracy\nscores improve by 0.9 percentage points and the probability of a democratic transition\nincreases by 1.3 percentage points.