Do Educated Leaders Matter?

This paper uses data on more than one thousand political leaders between 1875 and 2004 to investigate whether having more educated leaders a¤ects economic growth rates. We exploit an expanded set of random leadership transitions due to natural death or terminal illness and rst show that the individual characteristics of leaders matter for growth. We then provide evidence supporting the view that hetero-geneity among leaderseducational attainment is important and that growth is enhanced by having leaders who are more highly educated. Paper prepared for a conference in honour of Angus Deaton. We are grateful to the conference participants, and especially Angus Deaton and Steve Pischke for useful sugges-tions.…