Do Political Regimes Matter for Technology Diffusion?

Productivity growth is important for long-term economic growth and development, and technology adoption is one of its key drivers. This study empirically assesses whether political regimes are a significant determinant of technology diffusion. Specifically, we examine the effects of political regimes on diffusion of technology using data based on a sample of 104 technologies from 137 countries for the period 1901 to 2000. We consider detailed categories of technologies and investigate the differences in the impacts of political regimes on each technology. Our estimation results show that democracy does not have a significant impact on the overall diffusion of technology but it is positively associated with the diffusion of health- and agriculture-related technologies. Furthermore, the diffusion of infrastructure, general, and other sector-specific technologies is not influenced by political regimes. Considering different types of democracies and dictatorships, we find that parliamentary democracy has a positive impact on health- and agriculture-related technology diffusion. On the contrary, all types of dictatorships, namely civilian, military, and royal, have negative impacts on diffusion of technology.