The deep historical roots of macroeconomic volatility

Arbeitspapier

We present cross-country evidence that a country's macroeconomic volatility, measured either by the standard deviation of output growth or the occurrence of trend-growth breaks, is significantly affected by the country's historical variables. In particular, countries with longer histories of state-level political institutions experience less macroeconomic volatility in postwar periods. Robustness checks reveal that the effect of this historical variable on volatility remains significant and substantial after controlling for a host of structural variables investigated in previous studies. We also find that the state history variable is more important in countries with a higher level of macroeconomic volatility.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: ISER Discussion Paper ; No. 967

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Economic Development: General ; Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes ; Institutions and Growth
• Subject: Macroeconomic volatility ; history of State-level institution ; History of agriculture ; Technology adoption ; Political stability

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Tang, Sam Hak Kan ; Leung, Charles Ka Yui
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Osaka University, Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER)
• (where): Osaka
• (when): 2016

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/148195
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:45 AM CET