The Political U: New Evidence on the Economic Costs of Hybrid Regimes

Abstract

Recent research establishes a positive causal effect from democracy to income, although this evidence relies mostly on binary regime classifications. We extend the identification framework of Acemoglu et al. (2019) to a classification that distinguishes democracies, autocracies, and hybrid regimes for about 170 countries over 1960–2024. We find hybrid regimes generate approximately 20 percent lower GDP per capita than either alternative, robust to a wide range of estimators, measures, and specifications. This effect is not a transition penalty, supporting the view that hybrid regimes are a durable institutional equilibrium with sustained economic costs rather than a simple transitional phase.