Democracy and Foreign Education

2009/02/01 by Antonio Spilimbergo · 12 citations
Social Sciences · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Media Influence and Politics #Democracy #Economics #Stock (firearms) #Estimation #Developing country #Variety (cybernetics) #Inclusion (mineral) #Economic growth #Political science #Development economics #Sociology #Social science #Management #Geography

paper · doi:10.1257/aer.99.1.528

openalex publication_date 2009/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

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 in the 1950s, I show that 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 several estimation techniques, to different definitions of democracy, and to the inclusion of a variety of control variables, including democracy in trading partners, neighboring countries, level of income, and level and stock of education. (JEL D72, I21, O15, O17, P26)

Citations

• Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations
• Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy
• Identity and the Economics of Organizations
• Pinochet's Economists: The Chicago School in Chile

Cited by

• The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet Republic
• Do return migrants transfer political norms to their origin country? Evidence from Mali
• Who Democratizes? Western-educated Leaders and Regime Transitions
• Exit, Voice, and Political Change: Evidence from Swedish Mass Migration to the United States
• The return of the prodigy son: Do return migrants make better leaders?
• Who benefits from return migration to developing countries?
• Smart policy toward high-skill emigrants
• Emigration and democracy
• Western Media Exposure and Chinese Immigrants’ Political Perceptions
• Skilled migration and the transfer of institutional norms
• Documenting the Brain Drain of “La Crème de la Crème”
• Human capital flight [wikipedia]