Does national leaders’ work experience matter for economic growth?

Xiangyu Shi

Economics Letters, 2024, vol. 235, issue C

Abstract: I examine the effects of national leaders’ work experience on economic growth. Exploiting a cross-country panel data set that covers 135 countries and 60 years (1950–2010), I find that leaders’ richness of experience in public sectors (REPS) has significant and positive impacts on economic growth. I employ random leadership transitions and a regression discontinuity approach based on close elections to establish causality. I also rule out the case that better growth trajectories lead to the selection of more experienced leaders. REPS also improves various economic and political outcomes. Leaders’ work experience in private sectors does not have discernible effects on economic growth.

Keywords: National leaders; Work experience; Public sectors; Human capital; Economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E61 H11 M12 O20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016517652300530X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:235:y:2024:i:c:s016517652300530x

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2023.111504

Access Statistics for this article

Economics Letters is currently edited by Economics Letters Editorial Office

More articles in Economics Letters from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().