Landownership Concentration and the Expansion of Education

Francesco Cinnirella and Erik Hornung

No 10, Working Papers from European Historical Economics Society (EHES)

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of landownership concentration on school enrollment for nineteenth-century Prussia. Prussia is an interesting laboratory given its decentralized educational system and the presence of heterogeneous agricultural institutions. We find that landownership concentration, a proxy for the institution of serf labor, has a negative effect on schooling. This effect diminishes substantially in the second half of the century. Causality of this relationship is confirmed by introducing soil-texture to identify exogenous farm size variation. Panel estimates further rule out unobserved heterogeneity. We argue that serfdom hampered peasants’ demand for education whereas the successive emancipation triggered a demand thereof.

Keywords: Land concentration; Institutions; Serfdom; Education; Prussian economic history (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 N33 O43 Q15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 50 pages
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-edu, nep-his, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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https://ehes.org/wp/EHES_No10.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Landownership concentration and the expansion of education (2016)
Working Paper: Landownership Concentration and the Expansion of Education (2015)
Working Paper: Landownership Concentration and the Expansion of Education (2013)
Working Paper: Landownership Concentration and the Expansion of Education (2013)
Working Paper: Landownership Concentration and the Expansion of Education (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hes:wpaper:0010

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