Internationally comparable data on income and government expenditure for 115 countries, covering the period 1950-80, are used to assess the validity of Wagner's hypothesis. Individual country time-series data and several intercountry cross sections are studied. Besides a tremendous diversity in...

Fairly recent data for about one hundred countries indicate that as the average level of schooling increases, educational inequality first increases and, after reaching a peak, starts declining in later phases of educational expansion. The turning point occurs when average schooling is about...