Who's Your Boss?

The Economist has a nice article on the variance in politicians' professions across countries. The U.S., unsurprisingly, has more lawyers than any other country, and a remarkable lack of diplomats, civil service professionals, economists, and academics. And is it surprising that the Chinese government boasts of so many engineers (among them, President Hu Jintao)? Or that the military is so well represented in S. Korea but not India?

What would a model of the political economy of the professions of national leaders look like? Is it a function of national history or present circumstance? Does the composition of the leadership speak to ideational national values, or materialistic desires? How does this composition change over time? How does one's profession affect levels of partisanship?

I wonder how this picture would look with a larger sample of countries and the inclusion of religious leaders.



(ht: Blattman)