• Selection Model
  
• TABLE 1: Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) by Region
  
• TABLE 2: Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) by Level of Development and by Regime Type
  
• TABLE 3: Impact of Exogenous Variables on Regime Type (REG): Binomial Probit
  
• TABLE 4: Impact of Exogenous Variables on Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) by Regime Type
  
• TABLE 5: Predicted Independent Effect of Regime Type on Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)
  
• TABLE 6: Regime Type and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) by Year in Selected Countries and Years
  
• Appendix 1: Variables
  
• Appendix 2: LIMDEP Batch File
  

Y₁^* = (1 - r²)^½ y_t
Y_t^* = y_t - ry_t-1 , t = 2, …, T on the same transformation of x_t .

TABLE 1
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) by Region
(1960–90 IMR is the mean of observations in the respective region.)

Region	1960–90 IMR	# Observations
Sub-Saharan Africa	133	221
South Asia	116	31
East Asia	61	28
South East Asia	57	50
Pacific Islands/Oceania	49	6
Middle East/North Africa	100	66
Latin America	74	127
Caribbean and Non-Iberian America	66	30
Eastern Europe/USSR	23	35
Industrial Countries	17	487
Total	60	1081

 

TABLE 2
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) by Level of Development and by Regime Type

Level	Dictatorship		Democracy
	IMR	#Obs	IMR	#Obs
$0-1,999	1122.7	320	95.7	47
$2,000-2,999	84.1	57	59.6	38
$3,000-3,999	55.1	44	42.6	35
$4,000-4999	43.6	42	28.9	24
$5,000-5999	31.2	26	23.4	48
$6,000+	35	15	15.1	385
Total Observations		504		577

 

TABLE 3
Impact of Exogenous Variables on Regime Type (REG): Binomial Probit
Binomial Probit Model [where Democracy=0, Dictatorship=1]

Variable	Coefficients	Standard Errors
Constant	3.947**	0.704
STRA	0.173*	0.082
COMEX	-0.340*	0.147
NEWC	-0.253	0.228
BRITCOL	-0.735**	0.201
RELIGION	-0.0142**	0.004
CATH	0.626*	0.283
PROT	-0.385	0.430
MOSLEM	1.029**	0.313
ODRP	-2.734**	0.293
ODWP	-1.927	1.548
LEVEL	-0.000**	0.000

p<0.05, ** p<0.01. Degrees of Freedom =11.

Frequencies of actual & predicted outcomes:

	Actual	Predicted	Total
	0	1
0	496	81	577
1	50	454	504
Total	546	535	1081

TABLE 4
Impact of Exogenous Variables on Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) by Regime Type
Ordinary Least Squares Model [Democracy=0, Dictatorship=1]
(Standard errors in parentheses)

Parameter	Dictatorships	Democracies
Constant	134.437**	3.595
	(10.087)	(0.520)
COMEX	1.278	4.662**
	(2.686)	(1.861)
EDT	-14.087**	-1.847**
	(0.690)	(0.362)
FERTIL	2.397*	10.169**
	(1.171)	(0.764)
POP	-0.000**	0.000**
	(0.000)	(0.000)
LFPW	0.461**	0.535**
	(0.112)	(0.108)
LEVEL	-0.003**	-0.002**
	(0.001)	(0.000)
LAMBDA	-15.940**	-8.547**
	(3.960)	(1.926)
N	423	520
Degrees of Freedom	415	512
F	256.88	315.60
Fit:R-squared	0.81	0.81
Fit:Adj.R-squared	0.81	0.81
Durbin-Watson final	1.892	1.859
Final Rho	0.054	0.070

*p < .05, **p < .01.

 

TABLE 5
Predicted Independent Effect of Regime Type on Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)
Unbiased Values/Descriptive Statistics
(All results based on nonmissing observations)

Variable	Predicted Mean	Standard Deviation	Predicted Minimum	Predicted Maximum	# of Observations produced
IMR Dictatorship	52.6	58.5	-85.1	168.5	943
IMR Democracy	42.8	33.3	-4.52	141.6	943
Difference	9.8	33.9	-103.64	79.1	943

TABLE 6
Regime Type and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) by Year in Selected Countries and Years

Country	Year (a)	Regime (b)	Observed IMR (c)	Predicted IMR Dictatorship (d)	Predicted IMR Democracy (e)	Difference f=(d-e)
Burkina Faso	1967	Dic	185	168.5	93.5	75.0
	1982	Dic	149	162.5	93.8	68.8
	1987	Dic	138	161.0	98.2	62.8
Brazil	1970	Dic	94.6	104.2	62.5	41.7
	1977	Dic	79	88.7	54.5	34.3
	1982	Dem	71	77.2	50.6	26.6
	1987	Dem	63	63.8	43.5	20.3
China	1962	Dic	88	106.9	141.6	-34.7
	1970	Dic	69	72.9	130.9	-57.9
	1976	Dic	44	42.5	107.6	-65.0
	1980	Dic	42	27.2	105.1	-77.9
	1987	Dic	37	6.3	109.9	-103.6
Egypt	1970	Dic	158.0	103.1	62.4	40.7
	1982	Dic	112.0	76.9	51.1	25.8
	1987	Dic	86.0	64.7	42.6	22.2
Ethiopia	1967	Dic	162	161.8	84.9	76.8
	1972	Dic	155	160.0	84.8	75.2
	1982	Dic	159	156.1	96.4	59.7
Greece	1961	Dem	39.8	83.6	27.6	56.0
	1964	Dem	35.8	76.4	27.6	48.9
	1970	Dic	34.3	58.1	24.0	34.1
	1974	Dem	23.9	47.3	22.3	25.0
	1984	Dem	14.3	28.4	13.2	15.3
	1987	Dem	11.7	16.7	8.4	8.3
India	1967	Dem	145	97.3	108.8	-11.6
	1972	Dem	132	82.6	106.4	-23.8
	1982	Dem	108	53.3	104.0	-50.7
	1987	Dem	96	37.0	101.1	-64.0
Indonesia	1970	Dic	118.0	110.5	76.3	34.1
	1977	Dic	105.0	96.4	68.9	27.4
	1982	Dic	95.0	84.3	61.1	23.2
Mexico	1970	Dic	72.4	91.8	69.2	26.9
	1982	Dic	49.0	55.8	45.0	10.8
	1987	Dic	41.0	42.1	38.7	3.4
Nicaragua	1967	Dic	115	110.7	81.8	29.0
	1972	Dic	100	104.9	77.9	27.0
	1982	Dic	68	87.5	66.6	20.9
Nigeria	1970	Dic	139.4	145.8	94.5	51.2
	1972	Dic	135	144.1	93.3	50.8
	1982	Dem	95.7	130.1	91.9	38.2
	1987	Dic	87	115.4	83.3	32.2
Pakistan	1967	Dic	145	130.2	79.1	51.1
	1982	Dic	120	116.0	80.3	35.8
	1987	Dic	104	109.3	72.8	36.5
South Africa	1970	Dic	78.8	71.3	64.2	7.2
	1977	Dic	72.0	65.2	58.4	6.8
	1982	Dic	63.0	58.7	54.8	3.9
Switzerland	1961	Dem	21.0	10.2	14.1	-3.1
	1970	Dem	15.4	14.1	7.7	6.3
	1974	Dem	12.4	7.8	2.9	4.9

 

Appendix 1: Variables

The data set used for this paper was Alvarez, Cheibub, Limongi and Przeworski 1997, ACLP World Political / Economic Database. ACLP defines the variables used here as follows:

BRITCOL: British colony. Dummy variable coded 1 for every year in countries that had been a British colony any time after 1919, 0 otherwise.

CATH: Percentage of Catholics in the population.

COMEX: Primary commodity exporting country, as defined by the IMF.

EDT: Cumulative years of education of the average member of the labor force. (Bhalla-Lau-Louat series).

FERTIL: Total fertility rate (births per woman).

INFMORT: Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births.

LEVEL: Level of economic development. Real GDP per capita, 1985 international prices, Chain index.

LFPW: Labor force, female (% of total).

MOSLEM: Percentage of Moslems in the population.

NEWC: New country. Dummy variable coded 1 for every year in countries that became independent after 1945, 0 otherwise.

ODRP: Democracies in the region (Percentage). Percentage of democratic regimes in the current year (other than the regime under consideration) in the REGION to which the country belongs.

ODWP: Democracies in the world (Percentage). Percentage of democratic regimes (other than the regime under consideration) in the world for the current year.

POP: Population, in thousands.

PROT: Percentage of Protestants in the population.

RELIGION: Percentage of population of the largest religious group, measured in the year for which data were available (roughly 1976-1985) as presented in The Economist (1988) and Vanhanen (1992). Time invariant variable.

STRA: Sum of transitions to authoritarianism. The sum of past transitions to authoritarianism in a country. If a country experienced a transition to authoritarianism before 1950, STRA was coded 1 in 1950.

YEAR: From 1950 or date of independence to 1990.

 

Appendix 2: LIMDEP Batch File

The statistical program used for this paper was LIMDEP Version 7.0, Econometric Software 1985–1997. A copy of the batch file follows:

TITLE; ********** INFMORT PROBITSEL 5-8-99 ****************** $

LOAD; FILE=c:\statscom\WORLDSRT.INT $

READ; file=c:\statscom\demogr.wk1; format=wks; names $

TITLE; ********** REJECT MISSING VALUES ********************* $

SAMPLE; 1-4126 $

REJECT; INFMORT < 0 $ REJECT; INFMORT = 0 $

REJECT; EDT = -9 $ REJECT; FERTIL = -9 $

REJECT; LFPW = -9 $ REJECT; STRA = -9 $

NAME; XIMR= ONE, comex, edt, fertil, pop, lfpw, level $

REGRESS; LHS=infmort;RHS=XG,REG $

NAME; XREG= one, stra, comex, newc, britcol, religion, cath, prot, moslem, odrp, odwp, level $

CALC; LIST; KXIMR=COL(XIMR) $

TITLE; ************ PROBIT WITH SELECTION ***************** $

PROBIT; LHS= REG ;RHS= XREG ;HOLD(IMR=LAMBDA) $

TITLE; ************ HECKMAN TWO-STEP METHOD *************** $

TITLE; ************ OLS FOR DICTATORSHIPS ***************** $

REJECT; REG=0 $

CREATE; CL=COUNTRY [-1] $ (lags country)

CREATE; IF (CL # COUNTRY) FLAGD=1 $

CREATE; IF (CL # COUNTRY) FLAGA=0 $

CREATE; IF (FLAGA=-999) FLAG1=0; ELSE FLAG1=FLAGA $

CREATE; IF (FLAGD=-999) FLAG2=0; ELSE FLAG2=FLAGD $

CREATE; FLAGN=FLAGA+FLAGD $

REJECT; FLAGN=1 $

REGRESS; LHS=infmort; RHS=XIMR,LAMBDA; AR1 $

MATRIX; BAUT=PART(B,1,KXIMR) $

TITLE; ************* OLS FOR DEMOCRACIES ****************** $

SAMPLE; 1-4126 $

REJECT; INFMORT = -9 $ REJECT; INFMORT = 0 $

REJECT; EDT = -9 $ REJECT; FERTIL = -9 $

REJECT; LFPW = -9 $ REJECT; STRA = -9 $

REJECT; REG=1 $

CREATE; CL=COUNTRY [-1] $ (lags country)

CREATE; IF (CL # COUNTRY) FLAGA=1 $

CREATE; IF (CL # COUNTRY) FLAGD=0 $

CREATE; IF (FLAGA=-999) FLAG1=0; ELSE FLAG1=FLAGA $

CREATE; IF (FLAGD=-999) FLAG2=0; ELSE FLAG2=FLAGD $

CREATE; FLAGN=FLAGA+FLAGD $

REJECT; FLAGN=1 $

REGRESS; LHS=infmort; RHS=XIMR,LAMBDA; AR1 $

MATRIX; BDEM=PART(B,1,KXIMR) $

TITLE; ************** CALCULATE UNBIASED VALUES *********** $

SAMPLE; 1-4126 $

REJECT; INFMORT < 0 $

REJECT; INFMORT = 0 $

REJECT; EDT = -9 $

REJECT; FERTIL = -9 $

REJECT; LFPW = -9 $

REJECT; STRA = -9 $

REJECT; FLAGN=1 $

CREATE; IMR1 = DOT(XIMR,BAUT) $ (IMR1 is infmort under dic)

CREATE; IMR0 = DOT(XIMR,BDEM) $ (IMR0 is infmort under dem)

CREATE; DIMR=IMR1-IMR0 $ (DIMR is the difference)

DSTAT; RHS=IMR1,IMR0,DIMR $

STOP