Despite the large amount of private and public resources spent on foreign education, there is no systematic evidence that foreign educated individuals foster democracy in their home countries. Using a unique panel dataset on foreign students starting from 1950, I show that foreigneducated individuals promote democracy in their home country, but only if the foreign education is acquired in democratic countries. Instrumental variables exclude reverse causality and/or omitted variables. The results are robust to several estimation techniques and to the inclusion of a variety of control variables, including democracy in trading partners, neighboring countries, level of income, and level and stock of education. JEL Classification Numbers: D72, D74, H11
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