Democracy is widely believed to contribute to economic growth and public health in the 20th and earlier centuries. We find that this conventional wisdom is reversed in this century, i.e., democracy has persistent negative impacts on GDP growth during 2001-2020. This finding emerges from five different instrumental variable strategies. Our analysis suggests that democracies cause slower growth through less investment and trade. For 2020, democracy is also found to cause more deaths from Covid-19.

翻译：20世纪及更早的世纪中,民主被广泛认为有助于经济增长和公共卫生。我们发现,这一传统智慧在本世纪被逆转,即民主在2001-2020年期间对GDP增长产生了持续的负面影响。这一结论来自五种不同的工具变数战略。我们的分析表明,民主通过减少投资和贸易导致增长放缓。2020年,民主还导致更多来自Covid-19的人死亡。