Partisan and bureaucratic changes in public education spending. French empirical evidence

Abstract

Political economy provides four explanations of the changes of public education spending per pupil: that education expenditure is electoral, partisan, pro-cyclical or bureaucratic. The econometrical analysis of annual changes of French public education spending confirms the partisan and bureaucratic factors.

Keywords:

• education spending
• political business cycle
• public finance
• bureaucracy

JEL Classification:

• H52
• D72
• D73
• H53

Notes

¹ OECD figures

² Source: OECD

³ A chi-square test indicates there is no difference between the coefficient associated with right-wing government variable and no election and that associated with right-wing government and election.