Public Expenditure on Education and Economic Growth in the USA in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Earlier studies of France, Germany and the UK suggest that a common framework exists to explain the relationship between public expenditure on education and economic growth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This article shows that while a similar relationship exists in the USA, US policies were particularly committed to the educational expenditure required to produce citizens.

Notes

¹ I am most grateful to Richard Aldrich for his assistance in the preparation of this article for publication and to William J. Reese for his comments on an earlier version.

² Núñez, Clara Eugenia. E. “Literacy, Schooling and Economic Modernization: An Historian’s Approach.” Paedagogica Historica 39, no. 5 (2003): 535–58.

³ This research was supported through a European Commission Marie Curie Fellowship and an Economic and Social Research Council award.

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⁶⁶ The duration of Kondratiev cycles differs according to authors and to countries. In general, four long waves of approximately fifty years have been identified, each showing expansion and depression phases: (1790–1820/1820–1848); (1848–1870/1870–1897); (1897–1913/1913–1945); (1945–1973/1973–?).

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