Ideas worth spreading

1,145,422 views | Yasheng Huang • TEDGlobal 2011

Does democracy stifle economic growth?

Economist Yasheng Huang compares China to India, and asks how China's authoritarian rule contributed to its astonishing economic growth -- leading to a big question: Is democracy actually holding India back? Huang's answer may surprise you.

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Economist Yasheng Huang compares China to India, and asks how China's authoritarian rule contributed to its astonishing economic growth -- leading to a big question: Is democracy actually holding India back? Huang's answer may surprise you.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speaker

Political economist

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Yasheng Huang asks us to rethink our ideas about China and other large emerging economies. Lately he’s been asking, Does democracy hinder or promote economic growth?

Yasheng Huang | Foreign Affairs, January/February 2013 | Article

Democratize or Die

In this article, I write about the prospects for democracy in China.

Yasheng Huang | Foreign Policy, November 19, 2012 | Article

The Key to Bringing Democracy to China

An earlier article I wrote, also on the prospects for democracy in China.

Bridget Kendall | The Forum, August 12, 2013 | Watch

Sharing Prosperity and Power

You can tune in to a BBC program called The Forum for a discussion on democracy amongst myself, Amartya Sen and Salwa Ismail.

Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson | Crown Business, 2013 | Book

Why Nations Fail

For the best treatment of how an extractive economic model can produce growth for a period of time but eventually will collapse, read Why Nations Fail.

Steven Pinker | Penguin Books, 2012 | Book

The Better Angels of Our Nature

I always enjoy reading Steven Pinker's books, but his most recent book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, has some startling statistics on the death tolls of totalitarian regimes vis-à-vis the death tolls of democratic regimes. One of the major theses of this book is that the rise of the rights revolution and democratic forms of government is one of the main causes behind the historic reduction of violence.

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