A newer version of this project is available. See below for other available versions.

Does Democracy Cause Innovation?An Empirical Test of the Popper Hypothesis

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Yanyan Gao, School of Economics and Management, Southeast University; Leizhen Zang, School of Public Policy and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences; Antoine Roth, Graduate Schools for Law and Politics, the University of Tokyo; Puqu Wang, Institute of State Governance Studies, Peking University

Version:  View help for Version V1

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  data_RP 05/16/2017 01:38:PM
Readme.docx application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document 119.2 KB 05/13/2017 05:54:PM
data_submit.do text/x-stata-syntax 16.4 KB 05/13/2017 05:54:PM
submit_rp_1.dta application/x-stata 1.8 MB 05/13/2017 05:44:PM
submit_rp_2.dta application/x-stata 34.7 KB 05/13/2017 05:43:PM
supple_rp_1.dta application/x-stata 1.9 MB 05/13/2017 05:32:PM
supple_rp_2.dta application/x-stata 36.9 KB 05/13/2017 05:39:PM

Project Citation: 

Gao, Yanyan, Zang, Leizhen, Roth, Antoine, and Wang, Puqu. Does Democracy Cause Innovation?An Empirical Test of the Popper Hypothesis. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2017-05-20. https://doi.org/10.3886/E100632V1

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Here is the data used in the paper titled "Does democracy cause innovation? An empirical study of the Popper Hypothesis". Democratic countries produce higher levels of innovation than autocratic ones, but does democratization itself lead to innovation growth either in the short or in the long run? The existing literature has extensively examined the relationship between democracy and growth, but seldom explored the effect of democracy on innovation, which might be an important channel through which democracy contributes to economic growth. This article aims to fill this gap and contributes to the long-standing debate on the relationship between democracy and innovation by offering empirical evidence based on a dataset covering 156 countries between the year 1964 and 2010. The results from difference-in-difference method show that democracy itself has no direct positive effect on innovation measured with patent counts, patent citations and patent originality.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms Democracy; Innovation; Popper Hypothesis
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage 156 countries
Time Period(s):  View help for Time Period(s) 11/30/1959 – 12/31/2010
Collection Date(s):  View help for Collection Date(s) 6/30/2015 – 10/31/2016
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) aggregate data; observational data; program source code


Related Publications

Download this project

Published Versions

V2 [2017-06-06]

V1 [2017-05-20]

Export Metadata

Dublin Core

DDI 2.5

Report a Problem

Found a serious problem with the data, such as disclosure risk or copyrighted content? Let us know.

This material is distributed exactly as received from the data depositor. As of April 2026, depositors are required to submit study materials in accessible formats. ICPSR has not reviewed, checked, or processed this material. For additional information about the study, please contact the investigator(s) directly. If you have questions about the accessibility of materials distributed by ICPSR or require further assistance, please visit ICPSR's Accessibility Center.