The Universal Link between Higher Education and Pro-Market Values

Abstract

Does education promote support for liberal economic views? We show in a large cross-section of countries that in almost all cases those with higher educational attainment are more pro-market and less sympathetic to economic regulation than those who have less formal education. This is true in countries with high support for markets and in those with high distrust of markets and strong support for government regulation. Fixed-effect models show that respondents’ education is negatively related to support for state economic activities. When considering Russian micro data, we observe that whether we confine ourselves to older people educated in the Soviet period or compare the results to a sample from the post-Soviet generation, we consistently find that those with more education are relatively less supportive of market regulation. Different models also show that parental education is a positive predictor of pro-market values.