Democracy and Foreign Education
American Economic Review · 2009 · Volume 99 · Issue 1
Abstract
Despite the large amount of private and public resources spent on foreign education, there is no systematic evidence that foreign-educated individuals foster democracy in their home countries. Using a unique panel dataset on foreign students starting in the 1950s, I show that foreign-educated individuals promote democracy in their home country, but only if the foreign education is acquired in democratic countries. The results are robust to several estimation techniques, to different definitions of democracy, and to the inclusion of a variety of control variables, including democracy in trading partners, neighboring countries, level of income, and level and stock of education. (JEL D72, I21, O15, O17, P26)
Keywords
Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior, Analysis of Education, Economic Development: Human Resources, Human Development, Income Distribution, Migration, Formal and Informal Sectors, Shadow Economy, Institutional Arrangements
Enable JavaScript for citation tools and additional paper interactions.