To segregate or to integrate: Education politics and democracy

David De La Croix*, Matthias Doepke

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

55 Scopus citations

Abstract

How is the quality of public education affected by the presence of private schools for the rich? Theory and evidence suggest that the link depends crucially on the political system. We develop a theory that integrates private education and fertility decisions with voting on public schooling expenditures. We find that the presence of a large private education sector benefits public schools in a broad-based democracy where politicians are responsive to low-income families but crowds out public education spending in a society that is politically dominated by the rich. The main predictions of the theory are consistent with state-level data and micro data from the U.S. as well as cross-country evidence from the Programme for International Student Assessment study.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)597-628
Number of pages32
JournalReview of Economic Studies
Volume76
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Economics and Econometrics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'To segregate or to integrate: Education politics and democracy'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this