OVERVIEW

The second kind of social spending emerged in the nineteenth century. Country after country turned toward tax revenues as a basis for launching or expanding schools, especially primary schools. Yet some countries took far longer than others to develop universal primary schooling – and most countries have deficient primary education even today. These differences in basic schooling have long been recognized as one of the keys to global income inequalities. Of all the kinds of public spending considered in this book, expenditures on public schooling are the most positively productive in the sense of raising national product per capita. Here we concentrate on primary public education, the kind of education that involves the greatest shift of resources from upper income groups to the poor.

What holds back primary and secondary education in so many societies, and what forces promoted it in the history of today's high-income countries?

How some nations came to promote mass schooling through taxation, capturing its external benefits for growth and democracy, while most others lagged behind before 1914, is the central issue in this chapter. As with poor relief, so too with early schooling, the roles of elite self-interest, democracy, and decentralization will help us interpret the rich variety of national experiences. The main arguments are as follows:

1. Global leadership: German states led the way in elementary education from 1815 until about 1860. In terms of enrollment rates, it was then overtaken not only by the United States, but also by several other countries. By 1882 France had become an enrollments leader in Europe. In the share of national product spent on education, Germany retained leadership throughout the nineteenth century, though other countries were not far behind.

2. […]