Landownership Concentration and the Expansion of Education

We study the relationship between the concentration of large landownership and the expansion of mass education in nineteenth-century Prussia. Cross-sectional estimates show a negative association of landownership concentration with enrollment rates. Panel estimates with county-ï¬ xed effects indicate that regions with an initially stronger concentration of large landownership exhibit increasing enrollment over time. These results are consistent with the erosion of large landowners’ feudal power due to agricultural reforms and the resulting emancipation of the peasantry which occurred throughout the nineteenth century. We present evidence consistent with the hypothesis that emancipation from labor coercion increased the private demand for education.