Oil discoveries and education provision in the Postbellum South

Stephan Maurer

Economics of Education Review, 2019, vol. 73, issue C

Abstract: This paper studies the effect of oil wealth on the provision of education in the early 20th century United States. Using information on the location and discovery of major oil fields, I find that oil wealth increased local revenue and education spending. However, population increased, and as consequence, schooling quality did not improve across the board. Nominal teacher wages increased, and oil-rich counties were more likely to participate in the Rosenwald school building program for blacks. However, neither student-teacher ratios nor school attendance rates improved in the wake of oil discoveries.

Keywords: Oil; Education; Race; Rosenwald; Local public finances; Resource booms; Teachers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H4 I2 N3 Q3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775718307817
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:73:y:2019:i:c:s0272775718307817

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.101925

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn

More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().