Personalism and the politics of central bank independence under authoritarianism

Figures & data

Figure 1. Relationship between Personalism and Legal CBI.

Figure 2. Histogram of CBI Frequencies by Personalism Quartiles.

Table 1. Summary statistics.

Variable	Mean	Std. Dev.	Min.	Max.	N
CBI	0.41	0.148	0.017	0.904	2251
Personalism	0.446	0.272	0	1	2935
Personalism2	0.273	0.259	0	1	2935
(Log) GDP	10.575	1.728	6.68	16.363	2756
Per capita GDP	9344.264	21176.083	310.565	227238.781	2756
Fixed Exchange Rate	0.316	0.465	0	1	2865
Trade Openness	70.799	49.986	4.98	439.65	2458
Neighbors’ CBI	0.444	0.115	0	0.809	2865
Communist Leader	0.088	0.283	0	1	2743
Regional Central Bank	0.134	0.34	0	1	2912
(log) FDI	−0.196	1.973	−11.485	4.494	2045
IMF Program	0.469	0.499	0	1	2367
(log) Inflation	2.298	1.04	0	10.076	1950
Executive Elections	2.01	0.905	1	3	2744
Legislative Elections	1.554	0.786	0	2	2744
Opposition Parties	1.388	0.722	0	2	2743

Table 2. Main results: effect of personalism on CBI.

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)
	(Weighted) CBI Personalism only	(Weighted) CBI Baseline Model	(Weighted) CBI Add. Controls	(Weighted) CBI Instit. Controls
Personalism	0.218***	0.160***	0.217 **	0.168 **
	(0.073)	(0.049)	(0.085)	(0.071)
Personalism2	−0.209**	−0.147 **	−0.206**	−0.187**
	(0.078)	(0.053)	(0.079)	(0.073)
(Log) GDP		−0.004***	−0.011 ***	−0.021 ***
		(0.001)	(0.003)	(0.002)
Per capita GDP		0.000	0.000	0.000*
		(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.000)
Fixed exchange rate		−0.011 ***	−0.025*	−0.036***
		(0.005)	(0.012)	(0.012)
Neighbor CBI Avg		0.445***	0.367***	0.435* **
		(0.045)	(0.082)	(0.081)
Regional central bank		0.082***	0.099***	0.096***
		(0.014)	(0.019)	(0.014)
Trade openness			−0.000***	−0.001 ***
			(0.000)	(0.000)
Inflation			−0.009**	−0.006
			(0.004)	(0.005)
FDI			0.017***	0.015***
			(0.003)	(0.003)
IMF programs			−0.011	−0.012
			(0.010)	(0.010)
Legislative elections				−0.046***
				(0.009)
Executive elections				−0.062***
				(0.006)
Opposition parties				−0.017**
				(0.008)
Communist leader				−0.252***
				(0.022)
Constant	0.364** *	0.298***	0.393***	0.701 ***
	(0.026)	(0.027)	(0.046)	(0.052)
N	2031	2020	982	982
Countries	98	96	66	66
Region dummies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Year dummies	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
R2	0.341	0.371	0.443	0.569

Note: Significance levels are *= 0.1; **= 0.05; ***=0 .01.

Figure 3. Predicted quadratic effect of personalism on CBI, based on Model 2.