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The Elite and the Marginalised: An Analysis of Public Spending on Mass Education in the Indian States

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  • Pal, Sarmistha

    () (University of Surrey)

  • Ghosh, Sugata

    () (Brunel University)

Abstract

In the context of strikingly low literacy rates among Indian women and low caste population, the paper explores whether and how far the interests of the marginalized poor are undermined by the dominant elite consisting mainly of the landed and the capitalists. We distinguish the dominant elite from the minority elite (i.e., elected women and low caste representatives in the ruling government) and also the marginalised as measured by the state poverty rate. Results based on the Indian state-level data suggest that a higher share of land held by the top 5% of the population lowers public spending on education while presence of capitalist elite, as reflected in greater degree of industrialisation enhances it, even in poorer states; the landed elite thus appears to be unresponsive to the underlying poverty rate. The effect of minority representation in the government appears to have a limited impact, indicating a possibility of their non-accountability to serve their cohorts and/or a possible alliance with the dominant elite.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 3707.

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Length: 43 pages
Date of creation: Sep 2008
Date of revision:
Publication status: forthcoming in: Review of Income and Wealth
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp3707

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Keywords: education spending; poor and the marginalised; minority elite; dominant landed and capitalist elite; literacy among women and low caste; development and non-development spending; India;

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Cited by:
  1. Pal, Sarmistha, 2010. "Public infrastructure, location of private schools and primary school attainment in an emerging economy," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 783-794, October.

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