Democracy and human rights
Professor Meissner's research on the link between trade openness to democracy featured by the White House.
According to the White House's report on "The Economic Benefits of U.S. Trade" just released "López-Córdova and Meissner (2005) is among the best studies trying to estimate a link from trade openness to democracy. Following the long literature estimating the link between trade and income (discussed earlier), the authors employ a gravity model specification to obtain instruments for international trade openness, using information dating back to 1870. Their work reports a positive impact of trade openness on democratization."
You can find the full report here.
