Institutional Quality, Economic Activity and Recessional Periods

Economic Resilience, basically, can be understood as the capacity of an economy to recover from shocks, also focusing on efficiency, constancy, absorption and other systemic characteristics of adapting to new conditions and recovering from shocks, but from an economic point of view. In this sense, can be defined as “the capacity of an economy to reduce vulnerabilities, to resist to shocks and to recover quickly” (CALDERA-SÁNCHEZ et al., 2016) and, moreover, as “the policy-induced ability of an economy to withstand or recover from the effects of such shocks” (BRIGUGLIO et al., 2009). In this sense, to shed some light to the discussion, we introduce the terminology of Economic Vulnerability, defined as “the exposure of an economy to exogenous shocks, arising out of economic openness” (BRIGUGLIO et al., 2009). Sewing the thoughts of the aforementioned researchers, Economic Resilience, then, can be summarized as the capacity of an economy to reduce the exposure of these same economies to exogenous shocks, arising out of economic openness, or other economic or social infrastructural characteristics, in order to improve the capabilities of this system to recover from the effects of exogenous shocks. VARIABLES: Recession Dummy - assumes value one (1) if the year registered consecutive quarterly periods of negative GDP growth and zero if not. This allows us to have a register of recessional points for our sample, that covers data from 2000 to 2016 for 175 countries. After the parameterization of the dummy, we recorded about 250 recessional points, in a sample of more than 3,000 data points; Control of Corruption - A standardized indicator, collected at the World Governance Indicators database from World Bank, that captures the perception of how much the political body of a country is “captured” by private interests; Voice and Accountability - A standardized indicator that captures the extent to which a citizen can participate in the process of choosing the government, as well as her freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of media; Rule of Law - Another standardized indicator from the World Bank Governance database, that addresses the use of military force to enforce the rule of law, the power, and freedom of the judiciary bodies, alongside other characteristics that define the law enforcement capacity of a country; Vulnerable Jobs in % of Workforce - An annual percentage of the employed population that is considered having vulnerable jobs, accordingly a methodology of the International Labour Organization; Gross Capital Formation in % of GDP - Our dataset provides a large amount of data (55 variables, of many types – from institutional quality to 4 economic indicators), and we pre-tested all of them to identify what would be relevant for the definition of a recession; Foreign Direct Investments Inflows in % of GDP - The number of foreign investments received by the country, measured in % of GDP, collected from WDI.经济韧性（Economic Resilience）简言之可理解为经济体抵御冲击并恢复的能力，其经济学视角下的核心内涵包括适配新环境、抵御冲击并恢复过程中的效率、稳定性、吸收能力等系统性特征。据此，可将其定义为"经济体降低脆弱性、抵御冲击并快速恢复的能力"（CALDERA-SÁNCHEZ et al., 2016），亦可表述为"政策引导下经济体承受或从此类冲击影响中恢复的能力"（BRIGUGLIO et al., 2009）。 为进一步厘清相关讨论，我们引入经济脆弱性（Economic Vulnerability）的术语，其定义为"经济体因经济开放而面临外生冲击的暴露程度"（BRIGUGLIO et al., 2009）。综合前述研究者的观点，经济韧性可总结为：经济体降低自身因经济开放或其他经济、社会基础设施特征所面临的外生冲击暴露程度的能力，以此提升该系统从外生冲击影响中恢复的效能。 变量说明： 1. 衰退虚拟变量（Recession Dummy）：若某年度存在连续季度GDP负增长，则取值为1，否则为0。该变量用于标记样本中的衰退节点，样本覆盖175个国家2000年至2016年的面板数据。经虚拟变量参数化处理后，在超3000条数据的样本中共计记录约250个衰退节点。 2. 腐败控制（Control of Corruption）：源自世界银行（World Bank）全球治理指标（World Governance Indicators, WGI）数据库的标准化指标，用于衡量公众对一国政治体系被私人利益"俘获"程度的感知水平。 3. 话语权与问责制（Voice and Accountability）：标准化指标，用于衡量公民参与政府选举的程度，以及言论自由、结社自由与媒体自由的实现水平。 4. 法治（Rule of Law）：世界银行（World Bank）全球治理指标数据库的另一标准化指标，涵盖军事力量执法合法性、司法机构的权力与独立性，以及界定一国执法能力的其他相关特征。 5. 弱势就业占劳动力比重（Vulnerable Jobs in % of Workforce）：采用国际劳工组织（International Labour Organization, ILO）的统计方法，计算就业人口中被归类为弱势就业群体的年度占比。 6. 资本形成总额占GDP比重（Gross Capital Formation in % of GDP）：本数据集包含多维度的55项变量（涵盖制度质量、4项经济指标等多种类型），我们已对所有变量进行预测试，以筛选出与衰退定义相关的核心变量。 7. 外商直接投资流入占GDP比重（Foreign Direct Investments Inflows in % of GDP）：以GDP占比衡量的一国接收外商直接投资规模，数据源自世界发展指标（World Development Indicators, WDI）数据库。