The Return of the Prodigy Son: Do Return Migrants Make Better Leaders?

Marion Mercier

No 7780, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of political leaders' migration experience on the quality of their leadership. We build up an original database on the personal background of 932 politicians who were at the head of the executive power in a developing country over the 1960-2004 period. We put forward a positive effect of the leader having studied abroad on the level of democracy in his country during his tenure. This effect is shown to be independent from the leader's education level, as well as from his profession. Moreover, it is mainly driven by countries with a poor initial level of democracy. These results are confirmed by various robustness tests. They propose a new channel through which migration may affect politics in the sending countries, namely the emergence of the elites.

Keywords: developing countries; democracy; migration; political leaders (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E02 F22 N40 O11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2013-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Journal of Development Economics, 2016, 122, 76-91

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Related works:
Journal Article: The return of the prodigy son: Do return migrants make better leaders? (2016)
Working Paper: The return of the prodigy son: Do return migrants make better leaders? (2016)
Working Paper: The Return of the Prodigy Son: Do Return Migrants Make Better Leaders? (2013)
Working Paper: The Return of the Prodigy Son: Do Return Migrants make Better Leaders? (2013)
Working Paper: The Return of the Prodigy Son: Do Return Migrants make Better Leaders? (2013)
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