  Democracy is widely believed to contribute to economic growth and public
health in the 20th and earlier centuries. We find that this conventional wisdom
is reversed in this century, i.e., democracy has persistent negative impacts on
GDP growth during 2001-2020. This finding emerges from five different
instrumental variable strategies. Our analysis suggests that democracies cause
slower growth through less investment and trade. For 2020, democracy is also
found to cause more deaths from Covid-19.
