Are constitutional characteristics a proxy for institutional quality? Evidence from 109 countries

The paper investigates the question whether constitutions are a proxy for institutional quality. It provides a discussion of institutions and states that constitutions are an example of a formal institution. As any other formal institution, constitutions are also influenced by countries’ informal institutions, including customs and belief systems. The novel content analysis goes beyond the often-used constitutional characteristics of government systems and electoral rules. In addition to the mentioned characteristics, the length, the number of revisions, and over 30 additional characteristics are coded for 109 constitutions, such as state religion and religious freedom as well as referring to state as mother, father or holy. Based on the content analysis, alternative constitutional scores are calculated. Statistically significant correlations are observed between measures of institutional quality such as corruption control and some of the constitutional scores. Based on the two widely-used economic development models, the OLS and two-stage least squares estimations are conducted with and without the institutional quality-related variables, where in the latter case the institutional quality-related variables are replaced by constitutional scores. Especially in two-stage least squares estimations, constitutional scores that emphasize the length, mention state religion, and refer to state as mother, father or holy statistically significantly and negatively affect income per capita. These findings point out to possible limitations to change that is aimed by constitutional revisions