DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17677141
title: Shared Island, Divergent Institutions: The Dominican Republic as Counterfactual Evidence for Legal Infrastructure Investment in Postcolonial Civil Law Systems

description: Dominican Republic-Haiti Property Rights Institutional Divergence Analysis

Overview

This repository contains the complete replication package for a comparative analysis of property rights institutions between the Dominican Republic and Haiti (2007-2025), using International Property Rights Index (IPRI) data.

Key Finding: The analysis documents a 106.6% expansion in the institutional gap between the two countries, with Physical Property Rights (PPR) accounting for the largest divergence (3.60-point gap in 2025).



Files Included

Analysis Code



HISPANIOLA.ipynb (973 KB) - Main statistical analysis notebook

DIAGRAMS.ipynb (879 KB) - Figure generation notebook


Data Files



IPRI- 2007 - 2025 data[25].xlsx (437 KB) - Complete IPRI dataset



2,437 observations across 27 variables

Coverage: 2007-2025, 125+ countries




Documentation



README.md (12.9 KB) - Comprehensive documentation with:



Variable definitions

Replication instructions

Statistical methodology




Figures (Publication Quality)



Figure1_IPRI_Divergence.png (267 KB) - Overall institutional divergence time series

Figure1_IPRI_Divergence.pdf (41 KB) - Vector format for publication

Figure2_PPR_Collapse.png (381 KB) - Physical Property Rights dual-panel comparison

Figure2_PPR_Collapse.pdf (46 KB) - Vector format for publication


Additional Visualizations



dominican_haiti_comparison.png (575 KB) - Four-panel component analysis

regional_comparison.png (114 KB) - Caribbean regional benchmarking


Data Exports



dr_haiti_comparison_data.csv (1.5 KB) - Time series data for both countries

summary_statistics.csv (221 bytes) - Key divergence metrics




Quick Start: Running the Analysis

Option 1: Google Colab (Recommended - No Installation Required)



Upload the main notebook:



Go to Google Colab

Click File → Upload notebook

Select HISPANIOLA.ipynb



Upload the data:



Click the folder icon 📁 in the left sidebar

Click upload button

Select IPRI- 2007 - 2025 data[25].xlsx



Install required libraries:










 

 




python



   !pip install pandas numpy matplotlib seaborn scipy openpyxl





Run the analysis:



Click Runtime → Run all

Analysis completes in 2-3 minutes



Download results:



Generated files appear in the files sidebar

Right-click to download




Option 2: Generate Figures



Upload DIAGRAMS.ipynb to Google Colab

Upload IPRI- 2007 - 2025 data[25].xlsx

Run all cells

Download generated PNG and PDF figures




Data Structure

Dataset: 2,437 observations × 27 variables (2007-2025)

Core Variables:



IPRI - Overall International Property Rights Index (0-10)

LP - Legal and Political Environment (0-10)

PPR - Physical Property Rights (0-10)

IPR - Intellectual Property Rights (0-10)

Año - Year

Country - Country name

ISO3 - ISO 3-letter country code


Country Coverage:



Dominican Republic: 19 years (2007-2025) - complete series

Haiti: 13 years (2013-2025) - partial series




Key Statistical Results




Metric
Value




DR IPRI change (2007-2025)
+0.66 points (+16.6%)


Haiti IPRI change (2013-2025)
-1.27 points (-37.3%)


Overall gap (2025)
2.48 points


PPR gap (2025)
3.60 points


Haiti PPR collapse
-78.8% (3.40 → 0.72)


Annual divergence rate
0.088 points/year


Gap expansion
106.6% (1.20 → 2.48 points)






Outputs Explained

Figures

Figure 1: Institutional Divergence (1 panel)



Time series comparing overall IPRI scores

Shows Dominican Republic improvement vs. Haiti collapse

Shaded area illustrates growing gap


Figure 2: Physical Property Rights Collapse (2 panels)



Left: Dominican Republic PPR stability (≈4.3)

Right: Haiti PPR catastrophic decline (→0.72)

Annotations for key events (Law 189-11, COVID-19/Moïse assassination)


Additional Visualizations:



dominican_haiti_comparison.png - Four-panel component breakdown

regional_comparison.png - Caribbean benchmarking against Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama, Colombia


Data Exports

dr_haiti_comparison_data.csv contains:



Year-by-year IPRI scores

Component scores (LP, PPR, IPR)

Calculated gaps


summary_statistics.csv contains:



Correlation coefficients

Regression slopes

Component gaps

Volatility measures

Percentage changes




System Requirements

Software:



Python 3.7 or higher

Jupyter Notebook (or Google Colab)


Python Packages:



pandas ≥ 2.0

numpy ≥ 1.20

matplotlib ≥ 3.3

seaborn ≥ 0.11

scipy ≥ 1.7

openpyxl ≥ 3.0 (for Excel file reading)


Hardware:



Minimum: 2 GB RAM

Recommended: 4 GB RAM

Disk space: 10 MB




Data Source

Property Rights Alliance. (2025). International Property Rights Index 2025. Washington, DC: Tholos Foundation.

Available at: https://www.propertyrightsalliance.org/

Acknowledgment: We thank the Property Rights Alliance for making the IPRI dataset publicly available.



License

This replication package is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

You are free to share and adapt this material with appropriate attribution.



Contact

For questions about replication or data access, please contact the journal editorial office.



Note

This replication package supports a manuscript currently under review. Complete citation information and permanent repository will be provided upon acceptance.

Last updated: November 2024