How often do dictators have positive economic effects? Global evidence, 1858–2010

Economic perspectives on leadership: Concepts, causality, and context in leadership research

“…Their results clearly do not support the benevolent autocrat hypothesis. First, Rizio and Skali (2020) show that the "growth-positive" autocrats-leaders whose countries experience larger than average economic growth-are present as often as would be predicted based on chance alone, and also that the "growth-negative" autocrats are found significantly more often than what would have been expected by chance. Second, based on the results from the regression discontinuity design estimations, the authors show that the occasional growth-positive autocrats are basically merely lucky, because they find themselves at the right place at the right time, simply riding the wave of pre-existing growth.…”

“…The paper by Rizio and Skali (this issue) is a perfect example of a macro-economic perspective on the relationship between national leaders and economic growth. Following in the footsteps of the Jones and Olken (2005) paper that we discussed in Section 2.2, Rizio and Skali (2020) investigate for a panel of 133 countries whether well-intentioned dictators can be identified as drivers of economic growth. They test the so-called "benevolent autocrat hypothesis," which argues that autocratic leaders can be good for the economy and the society when they are benevolent.…”

The Myth of the Benevolent Autocrat? Internal Constraints, External Constraints, and Economic Development in Autocracies

“…It is not new that the lack of constraints on the leader can lead to policy disasters. Many scholars make similar arguments (Acemoglu and Robinson 2012;Rizio and Skali 2019;Svolik 2012).…”

“…For example, Jones and Olken ( 2005) find robust evidence that leaders matter for growth by using the random death of a leader as an exogenous variable. Furthermore, Berry and Fowler (2017) uses randomization inference to show that world leaders matter for GDP growth, and Rizio and Skali Rizio and Skali (2019) show that autocratic leaders are more likely to provide negative growth than predicted by chance, while they are no more likely to provide positive growth. In addition, Kolstad (2020) shows that growth falls significantly when a long-term political leader leaves office, and argues that it is because of deliberate efforts by longterm leaders to concentrate power while in office and poison the post-reign economic or political environment.…”

Instability, political regimes and economic growth. A theoretical framework

“…However, no general agreement has been reached on the effects of autocracies on economic growth. Hence, for instance, Wright (2008) establishes conditions under which authoritarian regimes promote growth, while Easterly and Pennings (2017) conclude that the contributions of the vast majority of political leaders to growth are irrelevant and Rizio and Skaly (2020) find that, as a rule, autocratic leaders are bad for growth, and only in exceptional cases is their impact positive.…”