We should be concerned about the decline of democracy around the world for many reasons, and one of them is the harm that abandoning democracy would inflict on national economies.

That stands to reason given a new study published by the University of Chicago (Acemoglu, Naidu, et. al). The study, entitled “Democracy Does Cause Growth” concludes that “democratizations increase GDP per capita by about 20% in the long run”.

In short, democracy leads to growth and prosperity. The global trend in movements against democratic governance is therefore a great threat, not only to the erosion of freedom and civil liberties, but also the economic well-being of all citizens.

On the other side of things, is it possible that making our democratic institutions more robust— for example by implementing the National Popular Vote— could cause an increase in GDP or even prevent a future recession?