Third Wave Democratisation

Not all democratic transitions in the developing world have been smooth, and this has had an effect on economic growth. Matteo Cervelatti has investigated the process of democratisation, finding evidence that peaceful transitions to democracy have a significant positive effect on growth that is even larger than reported in the previous literature, while violent transitions to democracy have no, or even negative, effects on economic growth.

Matteo Cervelatti’s research activity includes the study of long-term development and human capital formation, political economics, theory and empirics of democratisation and institutions, demography and behavioural economics.

For the CESifo Venice Summer Institute in July, he is the co-organiser of the session: “Demographic Change and Long-Run Development”.

Mr Cervellati is professor of Economics at the University of Bologna. He received his PhD in 2005 from the Department of Economics at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona