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...

In this paper we use a 'market-based' approach to examine whether increased school expenditures are valued by potential residents and whether the current level of public school provision is inefficient. We do so by employing an instrumental variables strategy to estimate the effect of state...

Student disability rates have grown by over 50 percent over the past two decades and are continuing to rise. Policy discussion has linked this trend to state funding formulas that reward local school districts for identifying additional students with special needs. However, there is little...

Vietnam has achieved remarkably high rates of school enrollment and has maintained good social indicators (infant and under-five mortality rates, life expectancy, fertility rate, child nutrition, and access to basic services) compared to other countries with similar low income per capita.Nga...

Whether providing additional resources to local communities leads to improved public services and better outcomes more generally, given existing management capacity and incentive and accountability structures, is an unresolved yet important question for public policy. This paper uses a...

When there are externalities across households, governments can improve economic outcomes by equitably subsidizing education. But this chain of causality works only if (1) allocated resources reach the final recipients, and (2) equity in public subsidies translates directly into equity in total...