Staffan I. I. Lindberg, Martin Lundstedt, Felix Wiebrecht, Vanessa Boese-Schlosser, Kelly Morrison, Natalia Natsika, Yuko Sato
Abstract How does democracy affect economic, human, and societal development? We review the scientific evidence on this question from 2010 to present, finding that democracy improves economic growth, population health, gender equality, and peace. However, we find that empirical findings are either mixed or null for democracy’s effect on economic inequality and poverty, corruption, and education. Our review goes beyond the summary statistics of meta-analyses, considering also the methodological rigor and effect sizes of the studies reviewed in order to provide a more insightful answer to the question of what we really know about the impact of democracy. Where democracy is found to have a robust effect, the impacts are often substantial. Finally, we critically discuss challenges to the study of societal impacts of democracy and outline ways of improving research going forward.