SAT Inferences Question

Canada, which, according to international indices, has relatively strong democratic institutions and low intranational income inequality, experienced an inflation rate of 2.26% in 2018, whereas Oman, which shows the opposite pattern on such indices, had an inflation rate of only 0.88% that year. Such a comparison may seem consistent with the theoretical critique that by diluting control over the economy, democratic institutions inhibit states' ability to counteract inflationary pressures, but when Raj Desai et al. examined democratic strength, intranational inequality, and inflation in more than 100 countries, they found that democratic strength, if associated with low inequality, restrains inflationary pressures, which would suggest that ## Which choice most logically completes the text?