Does the Education of Politicians Matter? Evidence from a Bachelors Degree Requirement for Legislators in Pakistan

In order to contest elections in Pakistan in 2002, all candidates for the lower House of Parliament had to have graduated with a Bachelors degree or higher. This unique policy experiment disquali…ed 60 of the 207 legislators elected in the 1997 election, allowing us to identify the causal e¤ect of legislator education on policy outcomes for the …rst time; the outcome we study is their development spending. While it initially appears that a legislator’s education does not a¤ect his development spending, examining the composite e¤ect of higher politician education and various political changes resulting from the experiment, mainly di¤erent party identities, suggests a somewhat positive e¤ect. Speci…cally, in areas where a large party educated legislator replaced the small party uneducated incumbent, there is some evidence that there was an initial increase in development spending by this legislator. These legislators also implemented more projects, perhaps in a move to gain greater visibility infront of their constituents. In addition, where the educated legislator was from the religious parties alliance which swept into power promising greater service delivery, it appears that while the number of projects implemented increased, total spending did not, suggesting an e¤ort, perhaps, to fool voters (which does not seem to have worked in the subsequent election). The fact that there appear to be no e¤ects of politician education in those areas where the political party identity of the legislator did not change implies that the previous policies of the uneducated legislator persisted: this may partly be because relatives replaced some of the disquali…ed incumbents in Parliament (Afzal 2009a), perpetuating their policies, or that both educated and uneducated legislators are equally able to cater to the needs of the median voter in their constituencies, thereby rendering this policy experiment somewhat ine¤ective. JEL Classi…cation: D72, D78, H11, H52, O2