Democracy and primary education spending in Spain, 1902-22

Abstract

By the turn of the 20th century, nation-building reformers in Spain tried to stimulate schooling expansion to improve (or at least dignify) Spain’s position in the international arena. However, in this paper we find that democratic imperfections help explaining the modest spread of primary schooling after the 1902 reforms. Regression results show that the lack of effective electoral competition and political patronage lowered public primary education spending across Spanish provinces in 1902-22. Voter turnout had a positive impact but it was not big enough to compensate for this negative effect.