Dynamics of Democratization and the Organization of Education

Bas Machielsen and Bram van Besouw

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Abstract: We study the fiscal and educational consequences of franchise extension using the administratively arbitrary sorting of Dutch municipalities into nine voter-eligibility classes by the 1896 Electoral Law. Larger suffrage expansions contracted municipal expenditure and revenue and cut education spending, the largest budget heading. Public-school fees fell sharply while public pupils, schools, and class size did not change, so a smaller budget was spread over unchanged public provision and the saving passed to parents. Administrative records for 1905--1907 show that private pupil and teacher stocks expanded and the private share of teaching staff rose, while public stocks stood still inside a growing system. Neither a rise in the appeal of confessional schooling nor a fall in public teachers per pupil accounts for this. Teacher vacancy advertisements show private schools raising salaries while public councils increasingly rested on the statutory minimum. Democratization reorganized primary education rather than enlarging or shrinking it.

Keywords: democratization; political economy; education; public goods; public economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H75 I22 N43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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