本文提出「修正的Lipset假說」 – 「新聞自由能促進民主」來解釋近年來的民主化進展。新聞自由對民主的影響，文獻上大都強調它經由選舉機制所發揮的「傳遞訊息」與「監督政府」兩功能。但是，自由與民主的供給者為政府。除非反映公共財的需要和降低貪污這兩效果也能同時提高政府人員的邊際報酬，否則他們將缺乏誘因去推動民主與新聞自由。以「個人知識的增長」重新詮釋 Sen (1999) 的觀點，假設新聞自由提供人們認識政府人員得以貪污的相關知識。人民在極大化個人所得的行為假設下決定取得和投入的新聞自由。政府在追求最大貪污利益下決定新聞自由與民主的開放程度。本文提出一個簡單的新聞自由與民主的均衡決定模型，並以實證分析加以檢驗，發現到：人民對於新聞自由的需要能夠為新聞自由帶來促進民主的工具性角色。結構上，第一節為前言。第二節將說明本文所採用的民主定義和範圍。第三節討論修正的Lipset假說，說明新聞自由如何地影響人民與政府的行為。第四節為決定新聞自由與民主之均衡解的經濟模型，在第五節討論實證分析的檢驗結果。最後一節是本文的結論。

This paper proposes “the revised Lipset hypothesis” – “Higher freedom of the press can promote democracy” to explain the process of democratization recently. When we discuss the relationship between freedom of the press and democracy in the literature, we find one question: “It’s government to decide the degree of press freedom and democracy. What’s the incentive for government to supply higher freedom of the press and democracy?” We then present an equilibrium model of the interaction between corrupt government officials and people to show that “Increasing people’s personal knowledge in providing freedom of the press privately is the reason for freedom of the press being an instrument to promote democracy”. We also give an empirical model to test it. We find the evidence of a significant relationship between more freedom of the press and higher degree of democracy. Simultaneously increasing degree of freedom of the press and democracy is induced by the extension of the market. Besides that, we also test the institutional effects in the political structure. It shows that political structure is also an institutional factor between corrupt government officials and people. This result is robust to specification and the relationship is not sensitive to the choice of a particular measure of these variables, such as democracy, economic freedom and political structure.

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