This project would investigate the impact of education level of political leaders on development outcomes. Citizen-candidate models of representative democracy suggest that identity of the politician influences policy outcomes. In the Indian context, some studies have looked at the effect of identity of politicians in terms of gender, religion, caste, and criminal status on economic outcomes. However, there is almost no published paper that has investigated the effect of the education level of the leaders in the Indian context. Research on other countries and some cross-country level studies reveal mixed evidence on whether the education level of politicians makes them more effective. Besides, if educated leaders have different policy preferences than less-educated leaders, then their relative effectiveness may also vary across different outcomes. Thus, whether education can be viewed as an indicator of politician’s quality is an open question.  Our project will shed light on this issue by analyzing data from India.