Economic Freedom and People’s Regard for Education

Using data on 48 countries, this paper finds that people in economically freer countries care more about education. This is probably mainly because economic freedom enables them and their children to achieve higher returns to education. The magnitude of the estimated effect is substantial. The paper combines individual-level data from the World Values Survey with country-level data on economic freedom and other relevant factors. It controls for all relevant characteristics of survey respondents as well as for potentially confounding country-level characteristics. It also addresses potential endogeneity of economic freedom.