Electoral Competition and Public Spending on Education: Evidence from African Countries.
Electoral competition can have a significant influence on government decisions regarding public spending. In this paper I examine whether the move to multiparty elections in many African countries in the last ten years has been associated with a clear change in priorities for public spending on education. In particular, I argue that the need to obtain an electoral majority may have prompted governments to devote greater resources to primary schools. I test this hypothesis using panel data on electoral competition and education spending in thirty-five African countries over the period 1980-1999. The results strongly support the hypothesis and are robust to controls for both unobserved country effects and other determinants of spending.
Year of publication: |
2001
|
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Authors: | Stasavage, David |
Institutions: | Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Department of Economics |
Saved in:
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