Democracy, Transparency, and the Production of Official Statistics

Democracy, Transparency, and the Production of Official Statistics | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Democracy, Transparency, and the Production of Official Statistics Luca Di Gennaro Splendore, Shalise Ayromloo This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8376333/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 9 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract We examine whether democracy causally affects the quality of official statistics by focusing on historically colonized countries. To address endogeneity, we use historical settler mortality as an instrument, which shifted the probability that colonies developed democratic institutions. This approach identifies the causal effect among complier — colonies whose democratic trajectories were influenced by settler mortality. This group is substantively important, as many post-colonial states continue to face challenges in state capacity and data quality. Using cross-sectional data from 2023, combining the Economist Intelligence Unit’s democracy index and the World Bank’s Statistical Performance Indicators, we find that one unit increase in democracy raises the quality of official statistics by 5.3 to 6.2 percentage points. We further show that the effect is heterogeneous: it is about 3.7 points larger in common-law countries and 3.6 points smaller in civil-law countries, revealing that colonial legal traditions make democracy’s impact on statistical quality stronger in some countries and weaker in others. Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 23 Mar, 2026 Reviews received at journal 06 Mar, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 08 Jan, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 05 Jan, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 03 Jan, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 18 Dec, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 17 Dec, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 17 Dec, 2025 First submitted to journal 16 Dec, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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