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Landownership Concentration and the Expansion of Education

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  • Francesco Cinnirella
  • Erik Hornung

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of landownership concentration on school enrollment for nineteenth-century Prussia. Prussia is an interesting laboratory given its decentralized educational system and the presence of heterogeneous agricultural institutions. We find that landownership concentration, a proxy for the institution of serf labor, has a negative effect on schooling. This effect diminishes substantially in the second half of the century. Causality of this relationship is confirmed by introducing soil-texture to identify exogenous farm size variation. Panel estimates further rule out unobserved heterogeneity. We argue that serfdom hampered peasants’ demand for education whereas the successive emancipation triggered a demand thereof.

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  • Francesco Cinnirella & Erik Hornung, 2011. "Landownership Concentration and the Expansion of Education," CESifo Working Paper Series 3603, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3603
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    land concentration; institutions; serfdom; education; Prussian economic history;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth
    • Q15 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment
    • I25 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Economic Development
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913

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