1 Hong Kong Economic Journal, 13 May 2015 Democracy, Decline and Vested Interests Yue Chim Richard Wong My article last week set off a raw nerve among some readers. Radio Hong Kong found it sufficiently controversial to warrant a panel discussion on the topic two days later. I had presented empirical evidence (reproduced as Figure 1) by Harvard economist Robert Barro that showed political freedom and economic growth were positively correlated among countries with low levels of democracy, but negatively correlated for those with high levels of democracy. Figure 1: Growth Rate versus Democracy The negative reaction to the finding of an inverted U-shaped pattern, when the economic growth rate is plotted against the amount of political freedoms (as a proxy