Democracy and Foreign Education

Antonio Spilimbergo

No 5934, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Do foreign educated individuals play a role in promoting democracy in their home country? 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 from 1950, I show that indeed 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 reverse causality, country-specific omitted variables, and inclusion of a variety of control variables. The results are stronger for small countries.

Keywords: Education; Democracy; Development; Institutions; International students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D74 H11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-pbe, nep-pol and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Democracy and Foreign Education (2009)
Working Paper: Democracy and Foreign Education (2007)
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