14
Table 2 reports our findings related to the impact of democracy on the changes in marine
trophic levels throughout the countries’ economic development. We aim at finding different
thresholds of economic development where countries display different effects of democracy on the
changes in MTI. We keep the classification from the World Bank of low-, lower middle-, upper
middle-, and high-income countries, but also aim to show differences within these categories
(World Bank, 2011). A full list of countries and years when they are included in each of the groups
is available in Appendix 1.
TABLE 2. THE INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY ON CHANGES IN MARINE TROPHIC LEVELS
THROUGHOUT THE COUNT
RIES’ ECONOMIC DEVEL
OPMENT PROCESSES
DV: Differenced MTI
Low-income coun-
tries
Lower middle-income countries
Upper middle-
income countries
High income-countries
1
2
3
4
5
6
GNI/c<$1005
$1005< GNI/c
<$2000
$2000< GNI/c
<$3975
$3975
<$12275
$12275<
GNI/c
<$20000
GNI/c>
$20000
Democracy
-0.00170
-0.0121***
-0.00293
0.00679
0.00422
0.0749**
(0.00102)
(0.00360)
(0.00348)
(0.00540)
(0.0454)
(0.0212)
Openness to trade
-0.00543
0.0201
-0.0128
-0.00789
-0.0920
-0.00149
(0.0137)
(0.0356)
(0.0286)
(0.0168)
(0.0943)
(0.0425)
Population
0.0164*
0.0376
-0.000622
-0.0333
0.0858
0.0415
(0.00781)
(0.0433)
(0.0512)
(0.0526)
(0.0833)
(0.0390)
GDP per capita
-0.00717
-0.00995
0.0107
-0.0371
0.207
0.0855
(0.00897)
(0.0656)
(0.0424)
(0.0352)
(0.112)
(0.0581)
Trawling intensity
-0.00396
0.00121
0.0234
0.0112
0.0107
0.0123
(0.00491)
(0.00894)
(0.0210)
(0.0146)
(0.0274)
(0.00706)
15
Constant
-0.190
-0.502
0.0912
0.869
-3.023
-2.200
(0.167)
(0.795)
(0.989)
(0.709)
(1.914)
(1.111)
Observations
1,299
543
563
600
219
253
R-squared
0.002
0.011
0.015
0.009
0.038
0.036
Number of ccode
82
70
68
59
29
24
Robust standard errors in parentheses, *** p<0.001, ** p<0.01, * p<0.05. Groups are divided based on GNI per capita in 2010
constant US dollars. All the independent variables are lagged 1 year. Openness to trade, population, GDP per capita and trawling inten-
sity are log-transformed.
Column 1 presents the results for the countries in the lowest income group, classified by
the World Bank as
low income countries. The results in Column 1 show that the impact of democracy
on our dependent variable is not significant in countries where the gross national income is below
1,005 USD per capita. In the lower middle-income group, the picture is a bit more complex. Look-
ing at Column 2, the effect of democracy is negative and significant in the group of countries with a
GNI between 1,006 and 2,000 USD per capita are included. Yet, another cluster of countries within
the lower middle-income group, where GNI is between 2,000 and 3,975 USD per capita, display
insignificant results, as shown in Column 3.
As presented in Column 4, democracy shows no significant effect on changes in the health
of the marine environment in the upper middle-income countries. The results indicate that at these
development stages a country’s level of democracy does not seem to be a strong predictor of the
subsequent change in the health of its marine environment. However, the results are contrastingly
different when we proceed to analyze countries with higher levels of economic development.
Columns 5 and 6 report the results of our analysis for high-income countries with a GNI ex-
ceeding 12,275 USD per capita. It is evident from these results that democracy does not exert a
significant effect on the marine environment in groups where the GNI per capita is between 12,276
and 20,000 USD. However, an interesting finding is that a positive and significant effect is visible
among the countries with a GNI exceeding 20,000 USD per capita.
In sum, the empirical analysis shows negative effects of democracy in the poorer section of
the lower middle-income countries, no significant effects in the upper middle-income countries,
and positive effects in the richest of the high-income countries. In all, this lends some support to
the theoretical argument made in this article, i.e., that the effect of democracy on the marine envi-
ronment is conditioned by economic development and, more specifically, the institutions that are