Do More Educated Leaders Raise Citizens' Education?

37 Pages Posted: 19 Oct 2013

See all articles by Luis Diaz-Serrano

Luis Diaz-Serrano

Rovira i Virgili University; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Jessica Pérez

Rovira i Virgili University

Abstract

This paper looks at the contribution of political leaders to enhance citizens' education and investigate how the educational attainment of the population is affected while a leader with higher education remains in office. For this purpose, we consider educational transitions of political leaders in office and find that the educational attainment of population increases when a more educated leader remains in office. Furthermore, we also observe that the educational attainment of the population is negatively impacted when a country transitions from an educated leader to a less educated one. This result may help to explain the previous finding that more educated political leaders favor economic growth.

Keywords: political leaders, primary education, school achievement, political institutions

JEL Classification: I21, I25, I28

Suggested Citation

Diaz-Serrano, Luis and Pérez, Jessica, Do More Educated Leaders Raise Citizens' Education?. IZA Discussion Paper No. 7661, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2342533 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2342533

Luis Diaz-Serrano (Contact Author)

Rovira i Virgili University ( email )

Campus Sescelades, Carretera de Valls s/n
43006 Tarragona, Tarragona 43007
Spain

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 7 / 9
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Jessica Pérez

Rovira i Virgili University ( email )

No Address Available, Tarragona

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
176
Abstract Views
830
Rank
307,910
PlumX Metrics