 Autocracy and human capitalEric C.C. Chang and Wen-Chin Wu World Development, 2022, vol. 157, issue C Abstract: This paper examines the logic of human capital formation in authoritarian regimes based on theories of inequality and regime transition and the prospect of upward mobility model. Our central argument is that by investing in human capital, dictators can boost citizens’ perceived levels of social mobility. Consequently, dictators can preemptively ameliorate the pressure for redistribution from the poor and neutralize threats from the masses. In other words, dictators invest in human capital as a way of increasing citizens’ perceived social mobility and thus sustaining political stability in their authoritarian regimes. Our cross-national analysis covers more than 80 authoritarian regimes from 1970 to 2010 and shows that higher levels of education spending are associated with a lower probability of regime breakdown in autocracies. We further use a causal mediation analysis with the Asian Barometer Survey data and connect our causal link from human capital formation to perceived social mobility and then to authoritarian regime support. Keywords: Human capital; Education; Regime breakdown; Autocracy; Political support (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:157:y:2022:i:c:s0305750x2200119x DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.105929 Access Statistics for this article World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes More articles in World Development from Elsevier |
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