Policies in Hard Times: Assessing the Impact of Financial Crises on Structural Reforms

Abstract It is argued that crises open up a window of opportunity to implement policies otherwise would not have the necessary political backing. We show only crises–reforms nexus unfounded in data, but rather are associated with reversal liberalisation interventions depending on institutional environment. find that, democratic countries, occurrences no significant impact measures. On contrary, after crisis, autocracies reduce multiple economic sectors, which we interpret as fear regime change leading non-democratic rulers please vested interests.