Record Details


Field	Value

Title	Replication Data for: Economic Growth and Political Approval Ratings? Evidence from Latin America

Identifier	https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/DIIYV3

Creator	Vergara, Rodrigo

Publisher	Harvard Dataverse

Description	Using a panel of 17 Latin American countries for the period 2002–18, we study the impact of economic variables on government approval. Our empirical analysis shows that the one economic variable that appears consistently in all estimates is economic growth. More specifically, we show that for each point of additional growth, the approval rating increases between 1.1 and 1.9 percentage points. Other variables, such as inflation, government spending, and the composition of spending, are significant in only some of the specifications used, while growth is remarkably robust in all of them. Among non-economic variables, the lack of solid institutions also appears consistently as significant as well as the lagged value of government approval ratings. These results suggest that a program focused on growth has a positive influence on the popularity of the government. This conclusion is particularly relevant in a region where populism has been remarkably persistent over time and where the norm has been to run large budget deficits to gain popular support, with consequences on inflation and the external accounts.

Subject	Social Sciences Government approval Government spending GDP growth Latin America

Contributor	Vergara, Rodrigo

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