Do democracies select more educated leaders?

Besley, Timothy ORCID: 0000-0002-8923-6372 and Reynal-Querol, Marta (2011) Do democracies select more educated leaders? American Political Science Review, 105 (03). pp. 552-566. ISSN 1537-5943

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Abstract

This paper uses a unique data set on over 1,400 world leaders between 1848 and 2004 to investigate differences in educational qualifications between leaders who are selected in democracies and autocracies. After including country and year fixed effects, we find that democracies are around 20% more likely to select highly educated leaders. This finding is robust to a wide range of specifications, choices of subsamples, controls, and ways of measuring education and democracy.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJourna...
Additional Information:	© 2011 American Political Science Association
Divisions:	Economics
Subjects:	J Political Science > JC Political theory J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General)
Date Deposited:	20 Dec 2011 09:09
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2024 23:59
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/40799

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