Democracy and human capital formation: Education spending in Latin America, 1980 to 1997

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between democratic representation and spending on education in Latin America. The authors assess the impact that democracy has on the distribution of resources between different levels of schooling and on total spending on education. Specifically, they test whether democratic governments allocate a greater share of resources to primary education, the level that benefits the largest segment of the electorate and that is most critical for human capital formation in developing countries. Using time-series cross-sectional analysis, the authors find that democracies devote a higher percentage of their educational resources to primary education and that they maintain higher absolute spending levels on education in the aggregate, thereby enhancing the prospects of human capital formation.