Political Systems, Regime Memory, and Economic Freedom

We expand on the economic research about regime types, culture, institutions, and economic freedom, with the development of a unique measure of regime memory and examine the generational effect of past regimes on a country’s level of economic freedom. Using a panel of 144 countries between 1970-2015 we follow the literature and argue that institutions can be fast and slow-moving. We find evidence that regime memory promotes improvements in (discourages) economic freedom for countries that are historically democratic (autocratic).本研究拓展了有关政体类型、文化、制度与经济自由的经济学研究范畴，通过构建一套独特的政体记忆（regime memory）衡量指标，探讨了过往政体对一国经济自由水平的代际影响。本研究采用1970年至2015年间144个国家的面板数据集，遵循既有学术文献的研究范式，提出制度兼具快速变迁与缓慢演进的双重属性。研究结果表明，政体记忆对历史上属于民主政体的国家的经济自由提升具有促进作用，而对历史上属于威权政体的国家的经济自由则具有抑制效果。