1 Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142. · 2 Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142. · 3 Department of Government, Harvard University, 1033 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138.
Abstract
The conventional wisdom views high levels of education as a prerequisite for democracy. This paper shows that existing evidence for this view is based on crosssectional correlations, which disappear once we look at within-country variation. In other words, there is no evidence that countries that increase their education are more likely to become democratic.