Democracy: A Determinant Factor in Reducing Inflation

The economic literature has often explained the causes of macroeconomic instability by purely economic arguments. Monetary and fiscal policies have been considered as the exclusive tools for ensuring macroeconomic stability and reducing inflation. The purpose of this paper is to extend the range of...

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Main Author: Mohamed Fenira
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: EconJournals 2014-03-01
Series:International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues
Online Access:http://mail.econjournals.com/index.php/ijefi/article/view/752
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author Mohamed Fenira
author_facet Mohamed Fenira
author_sort Mohamed Fenira
collection DOAJ
description The economic literature has often explained the causes of macroeconomic instability by purely economic arguments. Monetary and fiscal policies have been considered as the exclusive tools for ensuring macroeconomic stability and reducing inflation. The purpose of this paper is to extend the range of explanatory factors in explaining macroeconomic pathologies and to demonstrate that democracy is an important instrument in reducing inflation. The paper firstly provides a critical analysis to the median voter theory, which claims the existence of a positive relationship between democracy and inflation, by relating the Tunisian case study and then presents a literature review that sustains our point of view. The paper finally develops an empirical study that measures the impact of democracy on inflation under a heterogeneous sample of countries and a sample consisting only of developing countries, for the period 1996-2012. The estimation results show that democracy is statistically significant in reducing inflation in both samples. Keywords: Democracy; Median voter theory; Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi (2012) democracy index; inflation; macroeconomic stabilization. JEL Classifications: E31; E61; E63
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spelling doaj.art-bd8cd1ff458342f0ba1768c76351fc7c2023-02-15T16:12:22ZengEconJournalsInternational Journal of Economics and Financial Issues2146-41382014-03-0142Democracy: A Determinant Factor in Reducing InflationMohamed Fenira0University of Economic Sciences and Management of Nabeul, Tunisia. The economic literature has often explained the causes of macroeconomic instability by purely economic arguments. Monetary and fiscal policies have been considered as the exclusive tools for ensuring macroeconomic stability and reducing inflation. The purpose of this paper is to extend the range of explanatory factors in explaining macroeconomic pathologies and to demonstrate that democracy is an important instrument in reducing inflation. The paper firstly provides a critical analysis to the median voter theory, which claims the existence of a positive relationship between democracy and inflation, by relating the Tunisian case study and then presents a literature review that sustains our point of view. The paper finally develops an empirical study that measures the impact of democracy on inflation under a heterogeneous sample of countries and a sample consisting only of developing countries, for the period 1996-2012. The estimation results show that democracy is statistically significant in reducing inflation in both samples. Keywords: Democracy; Median voter theory; Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi (2012) democracy index; inflation; macroeconomic stabilization. JEL Classifications: E31; E61; E63 http://mail.econjournals.com/index.php/ijefi/article/view/752
spellingShingle Mohamed Fenira
Democracy: A Determinant Factor in Reducing Inflation
International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues
title Democracy: A Determinant Factor in Reducing Inflation
title_full Democracy: A Determinant Factor in Reducing Inflation
title_fullStr Democracy: A Determinant Factor in Reducing Inflation
title_full_unstemmed Democracy: A Determinant Factor in Reducing Inflation
title_short Democracy: A Determinant Factor in Reducing Inflation
title_sort democracy a determinant factor in reducing inflation
url http://mail.econjournals.com/index.php/ijefi/article/view/752
work_keys_str_mv AT mohamedfenira democracyadeterminantfactorinreducinginflation