Lahoti, Rahul and Sahoo, Soham
(2020)
Are educated leaders good for education? evidence from India.
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 176.
pp. 42-62.
Abstract
Formal
education
is
often
viewed
as
a
proxy
for
the
quality
of
leaders.
Recently,
candidates
with
low
education
levels
have
been
disqualified
from
contesting
local
elections
in
some
states
in
India.
But
there
is
no
conclusive
evidence
linking
education
to
the
effectiveness
of
leaders.
Against
this
backdrop,
we
investigate
whether
having
educated
political
lead
ers
in
the
state
legislatures
in
India
improves
education
outcomes.
Using
comprehensive
data
on
various
outcomes
such
as
learning
levels,
enrollment,
school
funding
and
infras
tructure,
we
find
that
the
effectiveness
of
educated
leaders
depends
on
the
initial
level
of
development
of
the
state.
Educated
leaders
yield
better
education
outcomes
for
their
con
stituents
only
in
those
states
where
the
initial
level
of
development
is
high.
There
is
no
impact
of
educated
leaders
in
less-developed
states
or
in
the
overall
sample.
Our
identifi
cation
strategy
is
based
on
an
instrumental
variable
that
exploits
the
quasi-experimental
election
outcomes
of
close
elections
between
educated
and
less-educated
politicians.
The
results
are
consistent
throughout
various
robustness
analyses.
These
findings
have
implica
tions
for
recent
policy
changes
mandating
minimum
education
requirements
on
candidates
in
two
states
and
similar
proposed
changes
in
other
states.
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