Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

African Leaders: Their Education Abroad and FDI Flows

Contents:

Author Info

  • Constant, Amelie F.

    () (George Washington University, Temple University)

  • Tien, Bienvenue N.

    () (DIW DC)

Abstract

Leaders are critical to a country’s success. They can influence domestic policy via specific measures that they enforce, and they can also influence international public opinion towards their country. Foreign Direct Investments are also essential for a country’s economic growth. Our hypothesis is that foreign-educated leaders attract more FDI to their country. Our rationale is that education obtained abroad encompasses a whole slew of factors that can make a difference in FDI flows when this foreign-educated individual becomes a leader. We test this hypothesis empirically with a unique dataset that we constructed from several sources, including the Library of Congress and the World Bank. Our analysis of 40 African countries employs the robust technique of conditional quantile regression. Our results reveal that foreign education is a significant determinant of FDI inflows, beyond other standard characteristics. While intuitive, this result does not necessarily indicate sheepskin effects or superior human capital obtained abroad. Rather, it indicates the powerful role of the social capital, networks, and connections that these leaders built while they were abroad that they in turn mobilize and utilize when they become leaders.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://ftp.iza.org/dp5353.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 5353.

as in new window
Length: 33 pages
Date of creation: Dec 2010
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5353

Contact details of provider:
Postal: IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Phone: +49 228 3894 223
Fax: +49 228 3894 180
Web page: http://www.iza.org

Order Information:
Postal: IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany
Email:

Related research

Keywords: FDI; leaders' educational level; return migration; Africa;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

No references listed on IDEAS
You can help add them by filling out this form.

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Want more FDI in Africa? Get a foreign-trained leader
    by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2011-02-04 15:01:00
  2. Foreign Educated Leaders Attract More FDI
    by Ariel Goldring in Free Market Mojo on 2011-02-05 12:30:25
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Constant, Amelie F. & Tien, Bienvenue N., 2011. "Surviving the Turbulence Is Not Enough: Can Côte d'Ivoire Flourish Again?," IZA Policy Papers 30, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

Lists

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:
  1. Economic Logic blog

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5353

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Mark Fallak).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.