Education and democracy: New evidence from 161 countries

Abstract

This study reinvestigates the hypothesis that education has a significant effect on democracy. It adopts a panel causality methodological approach and data from 161 countries, spanning the period 1970–2013. The empirical analysis detects the presence of democracy dividend driven by education. The results survive a number of robustness checks pertaining geographical differentiation, educational stages and the inclusion of a large number of control variables. It is the first paper that makes use of an extended country sample, time period, while it provides a number of robustness checks not previously reported in the literature.