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The Uneven Rise of American Public Schools to 1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2010

Sun Go  and
Peter Lindert
Sun Go*
Affiliation:
Visiting Fellow, Korea Institute of Public Finance (KIPF), 28 Bangjugmalgil, Songpa-gu, Seoul 138-774, Korea. E-mail: [email protected].
Peter Lindert*
Affiliation:
Distinguished Professor of Economics, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616. E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

Three factors help to explain why school enrollments in the Northern United States were higher than those in the South and in most of Europe by 1850. One was affordability: the northern schools had lower direct costs relative to income. The second was the greater autonomy of local governments. The third was the greater diffusion of voting power among the citizenry in much of the North, especially in rural communities. The distribution of local political voice appears to be a robust predictor of tax support and enrollments, both within and between regions. Extra local voice raised tax support without crowding out private support for education.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2010

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