Vliv demokracie na ekonomický růst

This thesis analyses the effect of democracy, measured by the Polity2 index and its normalized form, on economic growth, expressed as the real GDP per capita growth rate. Panel data of 34 countries, obtained on an annual basis between 1990 - 2015, have been used. Their availability has been taken into account. First, theoretical aspects of democracy and its measurement by indices and also the assumptions of the neoclassical model of growth are introduced. There is an overview of various aspects concerning the causal relationship between democracy and economic growth, based on existing literature. In the next part, the direct effect of democracy on real GDP per capita growth rate proves to be weakly significant and positive. The results also indicate that this effect is linear. Next, individual countries are divided into groups with various levels of democracy according to their average Polity2 index scores over the entire examined period. Based on the standard deviations of the real GDP per capita growth of these groups, this thesis draws the conclusion that citizens of countries scoring high on democracy face lower long-term risk. In the long run, variability of the real GDP per capita is lower in these countries.