Supplementary information files for "Revisiting the effect of democracy on population health"

Supplementary files for article "Revisiting the effect of democracy on population health"I use a novel dichotomous measure of democracy to simulate a quasi-natural experiment and implement a difference-in-differences analysis to identify the heterogeneous treatment effect of democracy on population health across countries from 1960 to 2010. To counteract potential sources of bias resulting from unparallel and stochastic trends between treated and control units, I adopt a principal components difference-in-differences estimator that exploits factor proxies constructed from control units to account for unobserved trends. The main results indicate that countries that transitioned from non-democracy to democracy are more likely to experience health improvements, compared to countries retaining non-democratic institutions. However, the health-enhancing impact of democratization turns out to be much smaller in size than previously established. I posit that conventional estimates exaggerate the economic significance of the health returns to democratization due to inadequate attention to cross-border spillovers, global common shocks, and worldwide heterogeneity in the democracy-health nexus.©The Author(s), CC BY 4.0

《重新审视民主对人口健康的影响》一文的补充文件。我采用一种新颖的民主二分法测度（dichotomous measure of democracy）模拟准自然实验，并实施双重差分分析（difference-in-differences analysis），以识别1960年至2010年间民主对各国人口健康的异质性处理效应（heterogeneous treatment effect）。为抵消处理组与对照组单元间非平行及随机趋势所导致的潜在偏倚来源，我采用主成分双重差分估计量（principal components difference-in-differences estimator），该估计量利用从对照组单元构建的因子代理变量（factor proxies）来解释未观测趋势。主要结果表明，与维持非民主体制的国家相比，从非民主转型为民主的国家更有可能实现健康改善。然而，民主化对健康的促进效应在规模上远小于此前的研究结论。我认为，由于对跨境溢出效应（cross-border spillovers）、全球共同冲击（global common shocks）及民主-健康关联（democracy-health nexus）的全球异质性关注不足，传统估计夸大了民主化健康回报的经济意义。©作者，CC BY 4.0协议