Institutions, Technical Change and Macroeconomic Volatility, Crises and Growth: A Robust Causation

This paper evaluates the role of technical change as a mediating channel through which the effects of institutions trickle down to affect macroeconomic volatility, crises and growth. Using different samples, estimation procedures and indicators of institutions and technical change, we find a robust positive causation for better institutional quality to accelerate technical change, which reduces macroeconomic volatility, mitigates crises and enhances long-run economic growth rate. This result is not due to weak data, simultaneity bias, measurement errors or misspecification and is remarkably robust to a large number of alternative specifications.