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To Segregate or to Integrate: Education Politics and Democracy

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  • David de la Croix

    (FNRS)

  • Matthias Doepke

    (IRES and CORE)

Abstract

In most democracies, the majority of education expenditures is financed by the government. In non-democracies, we observe a wide variation in the mix of public and private funding of education. In addition, countries with high inequality tend to rely more heavily on private schooling. We develop a theory which integrates private decision on education and fertility with voting on public education expenditures. The theory is able to account for the facts mentioned above. Countries with high inequality exhibit more private education expenditures since rich people opt out of the public system. In non-democracies, concentration of political power leads to multiple equilibria in the determination of public education spending.
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Suggested Citation

  • David de la Croix & Matthias Doepke, 2003. "To Segregate or to Integrate: Education Politics and Democracy," UCLA Economics Working Papers 831, UCLA Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:cla:uclawp:831
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • H42 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Publicly Provided Private Goods
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy

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